


Sitting on the Bright Side of the Moon

by paradiamond



Series: Magic Moon [1]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Lots of Sex, Pregnancy, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Werewolf AU, Werewolf Will, general haplessness, it's a werewolf story so there's always a lot of sex, keeping secrets, light stalking on Will’s part, shady consent issues on Riley’s part, sweet people behaving badly, witch Riley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:12:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Witches Riley and Kala head to Chicago on the Magic Moon, the new moon, when members of their all-female coven embark on an ancient mission to conceive the next generation of witches. Riley wants nothing more than to complete the ritual and go home with a baby. Predictably, Will complicates things, and it doesn’t help that Riley has no idea that he’s a werewolf.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Really excited to start posting this fic! Supernatural stories are a weakness of mine and so I couldn’t help myself. This is a Will/Riley story, but the gang is all here in the universe spread out in different groups. We’ll get to that later. Enjoy! 
> 
> Fun warning, this premise of this fic is a based on an act I consider to be a serious sexual assault; reproductive coercion in the form of lying about birth control. In the fic it is part of the cultural practices of this fictional group of witches, but still. It’s ethically a disaster, and at no point am I advocating for this kind of behavior. The fact that this is a bad thing to do is part of the story.  
> Interestingly, on the legal side there doesn’t seem to be a problem in most cases? For example in Canada: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dad-sues-woman-for-lying-about-birth-control-ontario-court-says-nah Yikes

Riley’s phone buzzes against the plastic tabletop at one of the five Starbucks in town, abrasively loud even in the crowded space. Shaking her head, she glances down at it, already knowing who it is and why. She picks it up anyway. Kala. 

The first text reads, **What about him?** The next three are all pictures of a well dressed man in glasses. Riley shakes her head, but Kala texts her again before she can respond. **Bad eyesight not great though.**

Riley rolls her eyes good naturedly and glances up from her phone, happening to meet a stranger’s eyes from across the room. A young man with light skin and dark eyes stares back at her. He’s both very handsome and pretty at the same time. He smiles at her, seems nice. Riley smiles back reflexively and looks back down at the phone. 

_Keep looking (:_ she types in quickly and presses send. It doesn’t take long for Kala to respond. 

**What about you?**

Humming, Riley drums her fingers against the tabletop and considers the question. She hadn’t had very much luck in her search, possibly for lack of trying. They’d been in the city for days and she’d felt nothing. The Magic Moon, the new moon, was going to pass on and she still hadn’t found someone she felt was an appropriate father for her daughter, part of the next generation of witches. Easy going as she is, it’s not something to take lightly. 

_No luck yet,_ she sends and puts the phone back down, stress building behind her eyes.

The weight of the decision weighs on her. Riley had read the signs in the scrying mirror, meditated and decided that she was ready and excited to be a mother, but doubt still lurks in the back of her mind about going the traditional path instead of using a service like some of the more modern Sisters do nowadays. But Kala had been insistent on doing it the ‘right’ way. In theory, Riley agrees. There’s something to be said for ritual, especially for magic. 

Besides, they’ve always done everything together, and Kala is almost always right about everything. She had always been the smart one, and the dutiful one. Riley was the one who was good at plant magic and picking the right song to suit the mood. 

She sigh and looks out of the window. There are lots of men even on this street alone. It would be easy to draw at least one of them in and then slip away when she has what she needs. It’s not lost on her that Kala is probably most of the way there already. Riley keeps tapping her fingers and watching them go by. It wouldn’t be hard, she just isn’t sure if there’s one out there she would willingly let touch her. 

“Uh, excuse me?” 

Startled, Riley looks up again and sees the man she had spotted before standing in front of her with two drinks clutched in his big hands, fingers going almost all the way around. Riley blinks up at him as he shifts his weight around on the balls of his feet, his handsome face tinged with self consciousness. “I, uh, brought you a refill.” 

After a long second of processing, she smiles up at him, taking in his kind and beautiful features up close. He likes her. It’s an intriguing prospect, one that has potential. 

“Do you work here?” she asks, even though he clearly doesn’t. Flirting. It’s easy, really. 

He laughs and only looks a little embarrassed. Good. “Ah, no. I just thought you could use another.” 

“Well, thank you.” Riley pushes the chair across from her out with her foot and watches his eyes light up. “Want to sit with me?” 

“Sure.” He drops into the seat right away, without looking, and doesn’t spill anything. Good again. 

“I’m Riley.” She tilts her head and reaches across the table, taking one of the cups from him at random. He had probably gotten them both the same thing anyway. She lets her fingers touch his and feels a phantom jolt run up her wrist, which could possibly be another good sign. 

“Riley,” he parrots, still staring at her, all wide brown eyes and sharp, symmetrical features. She giggles. 

“You too?”

“What? Oh! No.” He laughs, relaxing, and it only serves to make him more attractive. “I’m Will.” 

“Nice to meet you, Will.” 

“Nice to meet you too, Riley,” he says and a slow smile spreads across his face. She feels the instinct to lean forward, so she does, putting her forearms on the table and wrapping both hands around her little cup. Will leans forward too. 

“So, what brings you to Chicago?” 

Riley tilts her head, playing coy. “How do you know I don’t live here?”

Will grins, mischief in his eyes. “I can tell.” 

Riley laughs and makes sure not to look away. Eye contact is an important step in building attraction. “I’m moving here this year. Right now I’m looking for a place to live.” 

She tests the lie for weaknesses and doesn’t find any. Apparently Will doesn’t either. He leans forward, visibly eager. 

“Oh, well it’s a great place to be. I’ve lived here my whole life.” 

Riley answers his smile with her own. “Not too cold?” 

He crinkles his nose a bit and shakes his head. “Nah. I run hot though. Where do you live now?” 

“California,” Riley lies again, putting her false self as far away from New York state as possible while still staying within the continental United States. A lie based in truth. 

“That’s nice, I’ve never been.” 

Neither had she. Riley nods anyway. “It’s a good place for music.” 

“I’ll bet,” Will says and then tilts his head, copying her, possibly without realizing it. “Hey, do you want to-”

“Sure,” Riley cuts him off and Will laughs, offering her his hand to pull her up from her chair. She takes it, thinking about old movies and men in hats, and her eyebrows fly up. 

“Wow. You are very warm.” 

His gaze drifts down to their linked hands. “Good thing too, your hands are pretty cold.” 

“We match,” Riley says, realizing a second later that they actually don’t, hot and cold don’t match at all, but Will smiles. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” 

***

Will shows her around the city for the rest of the day. He brings her to parks and special buildings and even to a big sports stadium. It goes on for hours. At one point he takes her hand to lead her somewhere through a crowd and doesn’t let go. Riley lets him, enjoying the warmth again. It’s only September but it’s already cold, which makes her grateful that she’s not actually moving here. As though he can tell what she’s thinking, Will leads her to a bench in the sun. 

“Ah.” Riley tips her face back and closes her eyes. 

“Not used to the cold?”

“No, I am.” New York state can be plenty cold, she just never liked it. 

“In California?”

Riley does her best not to let anything show on her face. “It’s the north part.” 

“Oh ok, like with the redwood forest and stuff?” Will asks, sounding proud for knowing this fact. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about so she just hums agreeably. Will nods. “That must be nice, do you like it here though?”

“Yes, it seems very exciting.” 

In truth she can’t imagine really moving here, away from her Sisters and her garden and everything she’s ever known. But Will doesn’t want to hear that. He’s a straightforward man who loves his city. Riley finds that she wants to give him what he wants in the short time they have together. “I like this place the best though, I like parks. We don’t have anything like this.” 

Will laughs. “Yeah, but it must be nice to have all that space. There’s a big forest right outside the city to stretch out in and that’s great. Why did you say you were moving here?”

Riley smiles. He had told her he was a cop, and it shows. “I’ll tell you for a price.”

Will looks mildly alarmed but then seems to realize she’s teasing. “Oh yeah? What’s that?” 

“A kiss.” 

He stares at her with wide eyes for a long moment before smiling and wrapping his arm around her waist, suddenly confidant again. She scoots forward on the bench and taps her cheek, angling her face in his direction. Will brushes her hair behind her ear with his free hand and leans in, but Riley turns her head at the last moment, catching his lips. 

She means for it to be short, just a little joke, but it turns out long and not very good for a public space, with Will running his tongue along her lower lip and Riley suppressing the sudden urge to climb straight into his lap. It ignites a fire in her, burning up from her stomach and into her chest, making her arms tingle where they drift along his skin. She hums under his mouth, leaning up to better bring them together. Will breaks away first, turning his face away to pant like a dog. 

Riley giggles and kisses his cheek, truly enthusiastic about the prospect of sex for the first time. “I saw that in a movie.” 

Will laughs and runs a hand through his short hair. “Lucky me. We should probably stop though, before one of my coworkers makes us.”

Riley can’t stop smiling. “That would be funny though.” 

He pokes her in the arm and she swats his hand away. “Maybe for you!” 

They don’t go straight back to his house like she expects them to after that. Will keeps on showing her around his city, pointing out what seems like every building he had ever been in, but she can feel in the air between them that the mood has changed. Riley takes hold of his arm like she had seen women do in movies and plays along with him. Eventually though, she pushes, the anticipation building under her skin. 

“What about your house?” She looks up at him, and grips his arm tighter. 

Spots of color appear on Will’s cheeks, and he only glances at her for a moment before looking away again. “It’s uh, this way.” 

The sun is hanging lower in the sky as he leads her there without question. Riley walks like a ghost, unsure about what she’ll do when she gets there. Handsome as he is, Will isn’t necessarily the most logical choice for her, but she likes him and he seems healthy enough, so she follows him through his front door and ignores the reasonable voice in the back of her mind telling her to turn around, to find someone else. It sounds like Kala, who is only fun at the right times, and never makes the kind of choices Riley gets in trouble for. 

“Here we are.” Will lets her go to gesture around the space. It’s a medium sized house, clearly lived in but not falling apart. The foyer has a pile of shoes by the door and scratched paint near the base of the wall, like furniture had been dragged against it. It reminds her of the series of houses in their coven, all well loved and stitched together with magic. A family house. 

Feeling acceptably safe, Riley nudges the door closed with her foot. “I like it. But is it kind of out of the way?” 

“Yeah, I like being a little bit out of the main city,” Will drifts a step closer to her. 

“Too loud?” Riley has to tilt her head back to look into his eyes when he takes another one. Her heart beats faster. She doesn’t step back. 

Will smiles. “Something like that.” 

Riley rocks forward on her toes, bringing them closer, close enough to touch. Will looks like he’s holding his breath and not like he’s about to move. The air between them is charged, like space around unrestrained magic. She closes the gap for him, wrapping her arms around his waist and linking her fingers. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

Will licks his lips and looks down at hers. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“Can _I_ assume?” Riley teases and rises all the way up on her toes to bring them closer. Will wraps his arms around her back, pulling her tight against him. He nods wordlessly, apparently too caught up to say anything else. Or maybe Riley reads too many stories and he just isn’t a talker. She’s been told that some men aren’t, and that all men eventually stop talking altogether. Either way, she kisses him. 

Will kisses her back right away, throwing himself into it with an enthusiasm that would knock her down if he hadn’t been holding her up. Just like before, he runs his tongue across her bottom lip and presses forward when she opens her mouth. It makes her dizzy. A noise builds in the back of his throat, escaping when she breaks away to trail her lips along the curve of his jaw. It’s fascinating, he’s fascinating. 

“God, Riley,” Will says under his breath, his hands flexing and then relaxing on her hips in a non-rhythm. 

Distracted, Riley just hums and kisses him again, rapidly reevaluating her previous misgivings. It’s nice, fun even. Curiosity burns in her as she steps back, pulling him with her until she’s leaning flush against the door. Will follows her eagerly, like she knew he would, pressing her tight against the wood. She feels the hard line of it holding her up and mirroring the hard lines of Will’s body at her front. It’s striking that there’s almost nothing soft to him at all. Everything is sharp lines that somehow blend, interesting in how different they are from hers. She had never been this close to a man before in her life, but she knows that not all of them are made like this. 

Will seems just as fascinated by her, alternatively leaning in to kiss her and pulling away to look down at her, his pupils blown wide and dark. His hands roam over her body, moving from her arms to her shoulders and then back down and around, sliding up her back. Riley relaxes in his grip, allowing herself to feel everything. She leans forward to put her weight on him as she kisses his neck. 

If he can tell she’d never done it before, he’s polite enough not to say anything. 

It’s like sinking, like falling into a strange dream. Riley forgets about the things outside of the house, outside of the moment. Then Will wakes her up by dropping his forehead against the door with a dull thud, startling her. 

“Will?” 

“I’m good, just give me a minute,” he says, mostly into the door. 

Bracketed in as she is, Riley can’t really move, so she just watches him as best she can with her neck at a strange angle. Her heart pounds with preemptive embarrassment. “Did I- is everything alright?”

Sighing, Will pushes away from the door. “Yeah, it’s good. It’s really good. I just don’t want to rush you, or anything.” 

Laughter bubbles its way up Riley’s throat. “Oh, I see.” 

Will laughs too, a little self consciously as he reaches up to rub at the back of his head. On a whim, Riley catches his hand on the way down, twining their fingers together. Spots of color appear high on Will’s cheeks, and he jerks his head to the left. “Want some food?” 

He’s ridiculous. Riley smiles. “Sure.” 

***

As it turns out, Will keeps a lot of food in his house and knows what to do with it. There’s a drawer full of vegetables, a seemingly endless amount of spices and a frankly strange amount of meat. Will ducks his head when she raises an eyebrow at him. “We like food.” 

“I can see that.” She trails her finger along the second of two gallons of milk in the fridge. “We?” 

Will blinks, then waves a hand. “Chicagoans, cops, Gorski boys. You know.” 

“Ah.” Riley laughs. “Well _we_ like cooking,” she teases, not mentioning that her ‘we’ is her coven. 

After refusing to simply watch and enjoy, Riley is given the task of co-chef, and sets about preparing the sauce. They watch each other as they move, Will giving instructions that Riley sometimes ignores, insisting that she knows better. Whenever she asserts herself, Will shakes his head and steps away, hands up. It’s fun, more so than she thought it would be. 

The pleasant smell of cooking food flls the air, complementing the easy silence they fall into. While they work, Riley thinks about the future. She pictures telling her daughter about it, about how she came from a nice man who could cook. 

When Riley was nine, her mother told her that Riley’s father sang her a song, and that it stayed with Riley, making her musical. It’s a truth. The men don’t have magic, but they can still give gifts. She smiles as she pictures her daughter up on a stool, pinch faced and focused as she mixes the wrong ingredients in a bowl. It’s wonderful, and feels right in Riley’s chest. She just has to make it a reality. 

For his part, Will touches her every chance he can get. His fingers caress her wrist, hands playfully grip her hips as he passes by, lips caress the back of her neck. The flirting hadn’t ended, it had only been postponed. It speaks to a confidence, a comfort that Riley appreciates. He leans over to pick up a knife, setting a hand covered in flour on her shoulder and then loudly apologizing for dirtying her sleeve. Riley just rolls her eyes and flicks sauce at his face. By the time they sit down to eat, they’re both a little messy. 

“You were right. This is better,” Will says, nodding at his plate, the food there improved by Riley’s direction. 

She smirks as she takes a bite, watching him watch her. “You’re just saying that.” 

“Nope,” he says with such assurance that she actually believes him. “You’ve improved on a favorite. I’m impressed.” 

“Thank you.” Riley shakes her head, pleased, then looks around the space. “This is a nice house.” 

“Thanks, I guess I still need to give you a tour.” 

She smiles at him, trying to make it a promise. “Got a bit distracted?” 

“Yeah.” Will laughs, but stops when Riley slides her foot forward to rest between his, something she had read in a magazine. It feels ridiculous until Will presses back against her, his eyes softening. 

“Don’t you get lonely?” 

Will laughs, suddenly and so loudly it startles her. “Sorry! But no, not at all. I have...I have company over a lot. A big extended family.” 

“Ah. Me too.” 

“Any in Chicago?” 

“Not that I know of. But maybe, not all of us are directly related.” 

Will nods, long and slow. “Me too.” 

Riley sets her fork down on her now empty plate. Will nearly jumps up to reach for it, but she waves him off. “You men are so ridiculous.” 

Will picks up his own and follows her to the sink, one step behind. “Trust me, I know.” 

Riley hums and sets her plate down in the sink before turning to lean back against the counter, elbows behind her, trying to look inviting. “Are you going to give me a tour?” 

“If you want,” Will says, and drags his eyes back up to her face. 

“Will you show me your room?” Riley asks, pitching her voice a little lower and immediately regretting it, feeling more ridiculous than ever. 

Will smiles, and steps close, one of his legs between hers. “Trying to seduce me?” 

“Only if it’s working,” she breathes, very close to his face. 

Will inhales sharply and turns to drop his plate in the sink, making a terrible noise as it breaks the one beneath. 

Riley can’t help but laugh, her hand coming up to her mouth. “Oh, Will! Who does the dishes?” 

“No one,” Will says, mischief crossing his face as he reaches down to pick her up, like she weighs nothing. Riley gasps, flailing for a breathless moment until she gets her arms and legs around him properly. Will grins at her. “You good?” 

“Yes.” Riley rolls her eyes and leans in to kiss him, embarrassed. Will hums in amusement but is quickly distracted, eagerly responding when Riley opens her mouth against him. 

“You still want that tour?” Will asks when he pulls away, his forehead pressed against her’s so that he’s all she can see. It makes her dizzy. 

Riley nods, and Will pushes away from the counter, walking with her wrapped around him like a limpet, all legs and arms. He holds her up with one arm, using the other to open the door to what Riley assume is his bedroom until she looks around. 

“So, this is the back porch-” 

“Will!” Riley cries in mock offense, a laugh already sneaking out without her permission. 

Will grins at her. “What?” 

Feigning outrage, she raises her eyebrows at him and makes like she’s going to climb down. In an instant both his arms are wrapped around her again, one holding up by the butt and the other pressed along the flat of her back, pressing her close to him. “Just teasing.” 

Riley readjusts her arms around his neck, amused in spite of herself. “I can always just go,” she declares, even though she hopes he knows she won’t.

Will shrugs, smiling like he has a secret. “Course. Let’s wait and see how you feel after the tour.” 

Riley rolls her eyes as he moves them back through the little house and up the stairs. She looks around as he shoulders the door open, intrigued as he gently sets her down on the bed. It’s clearly a single man’s room, though it’s not so terribly messy she can’t stand to look at it. His uniform is on the back of the desk chair and there’s a pile of clothes in front of the full sized mirror in the corner. 

Curious, she looks down to where he’s crouched at her feet and finds him staring at her, waiting. 

A bolt of lightning hits her when their eyes meet, settling into a hot flush. Riley ducks her head and then tucks the hair that always falls in her face behind her ear. Will reaches up and does the other side, making Riley relax around the heat between them. “Can we kiss some more?”

Will laughs and climbs onto the bed, bracketing her in between his arms in a way that makes her heart pound. They roll together to lay on their sides, faces very close. Riley’s hand flies to his cheek and she brushes her fingertips over his rough patches, distracted again. 

Humming, Will turns his face in her hand, raising his own to hold her hand to his mouth to kiss her palm. It inspires the need to move even closer to him, so that’s what Riley does, pressing herself forward to lean her weight against his. Will turns his face back toward hers but keeps her hand clutched in his as she rolls them over, putting herself all the way on top. She smirks and flutters her fingers against his and before letting go to brace her hands against his chest. 

“You like this?” 

Will laughs and slides his hands along her thighs, making her shiver. “Yes.” 

“I thought you were going to throw me down and ravish me.” 

Will stares up at her hungrily, his big hands flexing on her thighs. She shifts around on his lap just to feel him adjust his hold, and comes into contact with his erection by chance. It makes her freeze, curious and surprised all at the same time. Then she does it again, making Will groan. 

“Is that what you want?” His voice comes out gravely. 

Riley tries to keep a casual front, tracing patterns through his shirt with the tips of her fingers. “Maybe later. I’ve never done this before.” 

Will freezes under her, caught like a deer in the headlights, but she keeps talking, her pattern becoming more intricate as she avoid his gaze. “But I like this, I like you.”

Will sits up suddenly, catching Riley by the back so she doesn’t fall. “Me too. You can’t know how much.” 

He kisses her neck, then moves to the tops of her breasts, visible in her low cut shirt, painstakingly chosen to attract men like him. Riley hums, pleased to find that she has her legs spread even wider across his thighs now. It causes a good stretch, and just a little tantalizing friction. Will bites down on her collarbone softly, and Riley starts moving her hips, something deep driving her. She had always made a point to trust her instincts. 

“It’s not a problem for you?”

“God, no,” Will all but groans into her neck. “Can I touch you?”

Riley is breathing hard now, but it doesn’t dampen her mischief. “You are touching me.” 

Will smiles and slides his hand up from her leg to her sex, rolling his palm against her. The fabric dulls the sensation, but she’s quickly realizing that it’s not just about that, it’s also about the way he looks at her, how he grips at her with his other hand. Still, it’s not long before he hits a decent angle, making her moan and rock against his hand, seeking more. 

A kind of electric urgency comes through as Will pants. “Oh my god, Riley.” 

He gentles her backwards, laying her down on her back to settle between her legs. They’re facing the wrong way on the bed now, but she can’t care. Will seems just as unconcerned, staring down at her with such an open expression that it hurts to look at him, causes something inside her chest to clench. “Good? Just tell me.”

“Good,” Riley parrots back, but Will is heavy and big against her, and she’s shakey. It must be obvious, because he presses a small kiss to her cheek and leans away slightly. 

“We don’t have to do this now,” Will says, so sincerely. Then he makes a face, eyes going wide and round. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this now, actually. We only just met.”

Riley seizes up, acutely aware that this is quite literally their only chance. There’s no going slow, not for her. Her hands fly to his face, bracketing him in. 

“But I want to, do you?” She moves against him pointedly, rocking her hips up and into the hardness between his legs. 

“Shit, stop that.” Will groans and flattens himself onto her, pinning her down with his weight. 

It’s not according to plan but she can’t help but giggle and try to squirm out from under him, but she can’t move. He even catches her hands in his, holding them up near her head. 

“No fair,” she complains, putting on a hurt expression that she’s sure is absolutely laughable. 

“That makes two of us,” Will says, into her neck. He inhales right at the point where her neck connects to her shoulder and shudders. “You smell good.”

Riley can’t even shift. “Well at least kiss me again,” she demands, confidant she can convince him. It should be easy if the hardness she can feel against her thigh is anything to go by, and Will hadn’t made a point of denying her so far. 

True to form, Will immediately turns his head, catching her in a kiss that she deepens, drawing him down to her. Will goes willingly, nudging her cheek with his nose to prompt her to open her mouth for him. She smiles as she does it, the nonverbal nature of this kind of talking both silly and charming. 

As she tip her head back to grant him better access, she picks up the rolling of her hips again, moving from a slow rocking to a full grind, egging him on. Will’s hands moves from where they’re holding hers to grip at her hips, holding her still again. Riley lets out a whimper of disappointment that quickly turns into a gasp as he rocks against her, their clothes getting in the way and somehow making the whole thing seem even more obscene. She can feel him, sort of, through the fabric of his jeans, just catching against her. There’s not enough of anything, not friction, not skin. 

Frustrated, Riley shimmies in his loosened hold, working her arms down and up again in a flash to tear off her shirt and throw it aside. Will’s gaze drops to her chest and stays there. She flutters her fingers against his arms, still boxed in by his legs and elbows braced near her head. 

“Off?” 

Will looks up, his pupils blown black. “Yeah.” 

They pull away from each other, Will moving to the edge of the bed but irrationally keeping one hand on her shoulder as she wiggles out of her tight pants and underwear. He struggles to undo his, still holding on in what Riley assumes is some kind of strange male instinct, so she sidles up behind him to pull of his shirt, leaving him free to take care of his pants and underwear. 

The skin of his back feels good against her, so she slips out of her bra quickly to press close, trying to get more of the engaging sensation. Will shivers, the muscles in his back bunching and releasing as he turns around to face her. Big arms come up around her, enveloping her in him. 

The smell of her will stick to his skin, she thinks as she lays back, gently encouraging him to fall down with her. He follow eagerly, pressing against her, skin to skin when they settle. She hums and runs her fingers along his chest, up to his shoulders, exploring. 

Will touches her too, curling the hand not cradling her neck around her ribs, so big it almost reaches to her back, then up between her breasts, palm flat. Riley arches her back, pushing herself into him, and he grins, turning his wrist to cup her small breast. He covers her completely, so much larger than her, but somehow still the same. They have the same slightness, the same delicate features. Despite his muscles, Will has a fluid and proportional structure that compliments her, similar except for the scale. 

Enchanted, Riley touches the elegant slope of his neck, drawing her fingers down to brush against his collarbone. Will leans into it, letting his eyes drop closed as she explores him. He’s not hairy, and he doesn’t smell bad, which is a nice bonus. One of her aunts had talked about men who smell. 

“I know what I want,” she says, very softly. “I want you. Is this alright?” 

“If you’re sure, yeah.” He opens his eyes. “I want to touch you. Can I?” 

Riley smiles and for once doesn’t tease, making a show of settling herself against the pillows instead. Up until now, the touch of him between her legs had been secondary, just his thighs on hers and his hardness against her hip, part of the whole. But as soon as she hooks her leg wider around his hip, he looks down, and the feeling flows with his attention, concentrated and intense. 

Will slides his hands down from her neck and breasts to her stomach, then lower, in an obvious attempt to rile her up. The strange thing is that it works. Riley feels his hands like a brand all the way down to where they’re spread wide around her hips, how they burn when he caresses her thighs. Will watches, apparently just as caught by his own touch. 

“You’re so soft.” 

Riley giggles and sits up, bringing them nearly face to face, her legs spread around his bent ones where he’s resting on his knees. Will inhales sharply, his hands briefly tightening on her skin in an intriguing way before relaxing again. 

Riley smiles and slips a hand between his legs, touching the skin there. “You are too.” 

High spots of color appear on his cheeks. “Yeah, well.” 

“It’s nice.” 

His eyes soften and he shifts back, balancing on his knees as his hands start to rove more urgently, but not where she wants him to touch her the most. Riley wiggles forward, putting them in closer contact. “You can.” 

“Sure?” 

“Yeah.” Riley bites her lip in anticipation as his eyes drop again, the pupils blown almost all the way and making his eyes look black. 

Will hooks an arm behind her back, holding her up and to him as he moves his right hand down to spread her apart and finally brush her clit. Riley whines, pressing back against his arm for support as he slides his fingers down lower to slip inside her, making her gasp. She had touched herself before, of course, but it’s different from another person. Will rocks his fingers, the movement made easy by how wet she is, and inhales sharply, mouth open, as if scenting the air, before dropping his forehead onto her shoulder. 

“I want to eat you out,” he says, rubbing her clit with his thumb. 

Riley is dizzy, her heart is pounding, and she wants to lay down. “Later, I want you.” 

Will lifts his head, meeting her eyes. It sends a jolt through her that likely has something to do with the fact she still has her legs spread wide around his, rolling her hips into his hand. His own desire for her is plain, heavy and curved up between his own legs. Curious, Riley reaches down between them, crossing his arm in an X to touch his cock. Will’s fingers curls inside her, startling a gasp from her. 

“Oh,” she manages, and his arm tightens around her back. 

“Did you- do you want to be on top?” 

Riley shakes her head, pressing back against his arm. She doesn’t want to have to think about balance and rhythm, not right now. What she wants is to spread herself out, take her prize, give something back in return. 

Will gets the hint and follows her down, settling them back against the bed, still sideways. The position takes on a new and intriguing meaning as Riley shifts her hips under him, wiggling herself farther down to better match them up. Will helps, hooking her right leg over his hip and fencing in her head with his arms. Their eyes meet again, and she leans up to kiss him without thinking, humming when he immediately deepens it. 

“Let me know if I hurt you,” he says when he pulls away, so lowly it might as well be a whisper. 

Riley nods, too focused on the physical to speak as he looks down between them, focusing on lining up properly and then sliding in, slowly. 

It’s different from what she was expecting. She and Kala had practiced, giggling as they ordered sex toys off the internet, blushing as they opened them and spirited them off to separate rooms for testing. Coven guidelines are clear; there was no need for them to be too taken by surprise, or god forbid, injured. 

Of course, in practice the dildo had been unyielding, and terribly unsexy. The sensation wasn’t bad, per se, but Riley couldn’t take herself seriously enough to really enjoy it, and had resigned herself to some strained smiles and acting when the time came. 

Will does not feel the same as the toy. It’s not a shock, but at the same time, it is. Riley predicted the differences, but not how they would feel in the moment. For one thing, she isn’t in control of him. Every move he makes is his, not guided by her hand. When he pauses, she wants him to move, to pull out and push back in, but he stays where he is, adjusting. 

For another, he is unquestionably alive. She can feel his heartbeat, his sweat on her skin, mixing with hers. It’s almost overwhelmingly intimate, and all the most exciting for how little they know each other. Illicit. But sweet, she thinks as he links their fingers together. 

“Riley- god, you feel good,” Will breathes into her neck. 

She hums in agreement, not bothering to find her voice, and tightens her legs around his hips, drawing a strangled moan from him as he finally thrusts again, going unbearably slow. He rocks into her, the friction giving way to an even slide that has her shifting under him, desperate for more. 

It’s a different kind of pleasure from when he’d touched her precisely, more of a sense of fullness than a spark of nerves. The experience rather than the sensation. She isn’t sure that she’ll come while he’s inside her, but her limbs are tingling and her muscles relax as she stops thinking so much. The interplay of his muscles as he thrusts, the way he looks in her eyes, it all comes together as they move. 

Will is shaking, his hand now tightening and releasing on her hips as he thrusts into her, maintaining a steady rhythm. Riley looks up at him, flushed and fascinated, as he works to control himself. She doesn’t want him to. 

“Will,” she says, experimentally, and he groans, picking up the pace. “Will.”

His hand tightens on hers. “Yeah?” 

Riley just kisses him, imagining that she’s devouring him, imparting her urgency on him through her lips and fingers. The sounds and scents in the room grow more intense, more obscene as they move together, though Will’s rhythm is breaking down. His desperation send a line of electricity through her and she wants him to crack, to completely lose himself in her.

Inspired, she grips his hair tightly and at the same time squeezes her inner muscle around him, wringing a strangled moan from his lips. He hitches her leg higher and thrusts again, then once more, then freezes, spilling himself inside her. 

The literal feeling of it startles her. It’s warm, wet, and almost unbearably intimate. Riley gasps, tightening her legs around him in a grip that must hurt, her nerves humming at attention, but he seems to dazed to notice. 

Will’s face is red, flushed from exertion. There is sweat on her skin too, making her feel sticky and properly dirty, like she had done her work. She reaches up to ease him down, gentling him to lie down next to her, though she stays on her back with her right leg crooked up and bent at the knee. 

“Alright?”

“Alright. Yeah, I could say that.” Will looks up at her, smiling and still breathing hard. Then a line appears between his eyebrows. “Wait, you didn’t?”

“It’s alright, I liked it.” 

Will huffs and pushes himself up to give her an exasperated look. She raises an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t answer her as he hauls himself up and off the bed, sliding to his knees by the side of the bed. Riley leans up on her elbows to ask him what he’s doing, but then he takes hold of her hips and pulls her down, so that her butt is almost hanging off the mattress, and hooks her knee over his shoulder. Heat rushes to her face, despite what they had already done. 

“Is it later yet?” 

Riley laughs, and then moans when he leans down to lick the crease between her leg and her hip. “Oh.” 

He pulls away slightly to rub his face against the inside of her thigh, smiling slightly, without showing teeth. “‘Oh’. You’re so...I’ll never let you go.” 

“Good,” Riley breathes, and then closes her eyes, horrified with herself. This isn’t part of the task. She should leave, stop him. She had already gotten what she came for. 

Will makes a kind of rumbling sound in his chest, slipping his fingers inside her again. She’s more stretched than she had ever been before, and so wet it should be embarrassing, but she only feel powerful as Will pants over her. “Shift your hips up a bit? And let me know if you want me to stop.” 

It’s an easy out. All she has to do is say the words. 

She arches her back, sliding her free leg farther up and tilting her hips up to give him better access, chasing her pleasure. Will hums in approval sets a hand on her hip, pinning her in the perfect spot, and lowers his mouth to her, licking from her opening to her clit in one long stripe. Her muscles bunch, heat energy building in her and begging to be released. She stops thinking about stopping him when he seals his lips over her clit and sucks, making her cry out. 

It’s all for her, and she takes it. Riley has been a good witch her whole life, following the rules, even lying to this man about her life and intentions. She’s been good, but tonight she wants to be something else.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Riley continue their time together. Then reality sets back in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me so far! You have kept me honest and focused. And we got the 2 hour special! I'm amazed. So proud of all of us.

Riley traces patterns that aren’t there on Will’s sheets, listening to the relative quiet unfold around her. It’s a city quiet. She can still hear the traffic outside, the tick of Will’s watch, and the gentle rush of their breathing. He’s heavy and still behind her, his arm loosely draped around her middle, likely asleep by now. The light had faded, giving the room an otherworldly feel that she hates to disrupt. Riley watches the shadows move, wondering why she’s still laying down. She’s not supposed to sleep over, it’s against the rules. 

With a sigh, she moves slowly and silently to leave the bed, easing herself out from under his arm. She has one foot on the floor when he wakes up all at once, catching her by the waist to pull her back against his chest. Startled, Riley jumps, but relaxes when he buries his face in her hair. He makes a kind of rumbling sound that makes her shiver. 

“Where are you going?” Will asks softly, and Riley hums as he nuzzles the back of her neck.

Warmth seeps into her skin, and she arches her back on instinct, pressing against him. To the bathroom, she should say, and then keep going. She should crawl back to New York with her tail between her legs and say she was too afraid to complete the ritual. Or she should say, I have a very early appointment tomorrow on the other side of town, can I have your number and call you? 

“I want to text my roommate to let her know I won’t be home tonight,” Riley answers, and is immediately shocked with herself. 

Will smiles, and Riley shivers when she feels it on the back of her neck. “You’re so considerate.” 

“Well, she worries,” Riley hears herself say from what sounds like very far away. 

Will rolls onto his back and reaches over the side of the bed, letting her go. Taking the opportunity, Riley rolls with him, settling on her back as well to watch him fish her phone out of her pants pocket. 

“Here.” He hands it to her and then immediately scoots down the bed to wrap his arm around her waist again, this time laying on his stomach and looking up at her. 

It’s too easy to smile at him, so that’s what Riley does. “Thank you.” 

She sends a quick text to Kala, knowing that she will be confused and possibly upset, and then turns the phone all the way off.

Will is quiet for a bit, stroking the ridge of Riley’s hipbone. Then he makes a face. “Home?” 

Riley blinks down at him. “What?”

“You said you won’t be home? I thought you were just visiting?” 

_Police officer,_ Riley thinks, and it serves as a good reminder that she’ll have to be careful. That she probably shouldn’t be doing this at all. A cop, of all people. Her aunts would smack her along the back of her head if they found out. 

Riley waves a hand, putting the phone down on the side table. “Oh, I just meant the hotel. I live with her so I usually say home.” 

“Oh, right,” Will says, settling down again slightly higher than he had been before. He had been slowly shifting higher up and further onto her since he laid back down, covering her more and more, but stealthily, as though she won’t notice. Amused, Riley just runs her fingers through his very short hair, enjoying the feel, so much like some of her sisters. She watches him sigh and then keep breathing out, seeming to deflate against her, his eyes drooping shut. 

Riley bites her lip, charmed in spite of herself. “Are you going to sleep there?” 

He opens one eye. “Am I crushing you?”

“No, I am just making fun of you.” 

In truth, he’s very warm and she likes the feeling of his weight, like a big heavy blanket in winter. Like her and seven sisters all sleeping in the bed together as children, trying to make light out of nothing and falling asleep from sheer exhaustion. 

“Thanks,” he snorts and then curls his fingers all the way around her forearm, like a big bracelet. “I’m glad I found you, Riley.” 

“Me too,” she says at a near whisper, and tries to ignore the sinking feeling that crops up when he pulls her in tighter. “I’ll be sad when I have to leave.” 

“But happy when you come back.” Will has his eyes closed but he smiles. Riley can feel it against her skin again. She’s glad that he doesn’t see that she doesn’t smile back.

“Of course.” She trails her fingers along his scalp and imparts just a little bit of her will on him, touching him with the barest amount of magic. “Sleep now.” 

He does, his head now heavy on her shoulder, and carries her with him soon after. 

***

Riley wakes up slowly, coming back to awareness in a gradual slide. Once or twice she blinks, the world briefly swimming into focus before she closes her eyes again, not ready to face the world. It reminds her of summer weekends napping in the middle of the day after a long training, laying there, magically drained. 

That in turn reminds her that she likely _is_ magically drained after all the spells and charms she used on herself. Protection from disease, promotion of pregnancy. Magic costs what it gives. Riley shifts, feeling the strain, the satisfied stretch in her muscles. There are also fingers in her hair, gently pulling through before starting over. Will. 

They must have moved in the night, shifting from Will lying on top of Riley to Will spooning up behind her again, his arm wrapped around her middle. When she turns her head, he pulls away to look at her, smiling drowsily. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” Riley parrots, twisting over him a bit to get a look at the clock. “It’s early.” 

His arm tightens around her, pulling her back down. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’ve got work today though, so I’ll have to leave.” 

She hums and presses back against him, the novelty of long planes and hard angles not quite worn off. “When?” 

Will just hums back, apparently distracted, and either growing hard against her or getting hard again, like men do. Riley snickers and rolls her hips against him, making him sigh into the back of her neck. “Don’t start that again, we’ll be here all morning.” 

“Good,” she says, grateful for being a natural morning person, and turns in his arms to hook his neck with her hand and hitch her leg around his waist. “Unless you’d rather not.” 

“Rather doesn't have anything to do with it,” Will says, nonsensically, staring intently at her naked form. His hand slides up from her bellybutton to her collarbone, passing between her small breasts in a tantalizing way. 

Riley sighs, the fires from the night before quickly regaining their heat. Memories become fantasies become realities as Will rolls them gently, putting her under his arms and around his hips again. His hands roam freely, massaging her breasts, trailing down to trace where the curve of her ass becomes the long line of her thigh, pressed up against him. She bites his neck and feel him twitch against her, hot and present again. It’s exciting, forbidden except for this one time. 

Will pulls away enough to look her in both eyes. “What do you want?” 

“You, again.” 

He makes the rumbling sound she’d heard from him the night before again and dips his hand between her legs, drawing two fingers up the length of her, stopping to gently tease her clit. She gasps, and Will smiles. “Like this?”

“Yes. More.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Will turns his hand, slipping his fingers inside her and massaging her clit with his thumb. It’s clumsy, not quite how she does it to herself, but the wet sounds his fingers make and the way he stares at her makes it better, makes it a different thing entirely, engaging rather than efficient. She follows him, angling her hips how she wants it and moving with his rhythm. It makes her selfish, driving her to want more and encouraging her to take it. 

He curls his fingers, and Riley throws her head back, feeling the shiver run from the inside out, close to what she wants. She sits up, mostly dislodging him, though he only hums and leans forward for a kiss, gently pressing, urging her forward. But Riley has different plans to put into action, driven by an urge she had ignored the night before. She breaks away to put her hands on his shoulders and push, guiding him down to lay on his back. Will stares up at her as she straddles him, with mischief in his face that she’s pretty sure matches her own. 

“Yes?” Riley all but breathes, not wanting to disrupt the moment too badly. 

Will nods, clearly distracted, his hands sliding along her hips, around to grip her ass, up her back. She shivers, feeling both powerful and exposed being naked and on top of him while the morning light comes in through the window. Not to mention that they had just hit the outer limit of her experience. 

Something must show in her face, because Will shifts under her, scooting down the bed to move himself into position for her. Riley bites her lip and reaches down to touch him, building her confidence as he throws his head back against the pillows. “Oh god- not too much.” 

“But it’s good?” 

“You’re amazing.” 

Riley huffs and slips her free hand down to touch herself, though she’s sure she’s ready. Will’s eyes light up and he bats her hands away, sliding the same two fingers into her and finding no resistance. Riley lets him, holding herself up for it, taking it for herself. She feels obscene, dripping wetness onto his hand and moaning like a film star, but the sting of dirtiness had gone away. Instead she feels worshipped, like she had when he licked her open, made her come with his mouth. She wants it again, all the way. 

“Can I ride you?” Riley manages, breathing hard with the tension pooling inside her. 

Will nods, looking a little dazed as he stares up at her. “Yeah, let me just, uh- Jesus.” 

Riley giggles and raises herself up on her knees to get into position. Will helps, taking himself in hand while she sinks down slowly, matching them up perfectly. There’s little resistance, though some of her spells had clearly worn off and she can feel a pinch of strain as well. Ignoring it, Riley slowly sinks all the way down, careful of both of them, and sighs when she settles on top of his thighs. Underneath her, Will is shaking. 

“Alright?” he manages to ask, his voice tight and his hands hard on her hips. 

She takes pity on him and rocks her hips, adjusting them both to the feeling before rising up to drop back down again, letting out a sharp cry. Will groans and slides his hands from her hips to her thighs instead, stabilizing her and leaving her free to move. Riley takes the opportunity, raising herself up and then dropping back down again, then again, adapting quickly to the strange sensation. 

Heat moves through her, bubbling up like lava, like a wave. Riley chases the feeling, letting her eyes drop shut. Her legs burn, unused to this much sustained pressure, but she powers through it, chasing Will to the brink even as she almost physically falls off of him in her unpracticed enthusiasm. 

She gasps, her mistake having caused a shift inside her that sent a bolt of lightning through her veins. She rolls her hips to repeat it, letting out a sharp cry when it works, but it’s not enough, and she can’t get enough leverage to properly control it. The headboard in front of her presents an opportunity, and she takes it, grabbing on to stabilize her movements while Will shifts up the bed, half sitting up to close the space between them. 

Riley stares down at him through half slitted eyes, feeling the familiar build of her orgasm in the pit of her stomach, up the back of her thighs. Her legs tighten around him, and his eyes widen, his hands shooting up to grip at her hips, her back, pulling her forward every time that he thrusts, matching her rhythm. It’s too much, and she wants more. She slips a hand down between her legs to touch herself, circling her finger, once, twice, and then she’s coming, on him, around him, instinctively trying to clamp her legs shut as he bucks his hips wildly.

She gasps, barely aware of the sequence of events as he wraps an arm around her back, pulling her in close to bury his face in her neck as he comes inside her, the heat and the spread of it making her moan in the aftershocks. He’s there when she turns her head, looking at her, all she can see. It’s overwhelming, especially as he keep touching her, running his hands over her skin as she all but hums with energy, panting and electrified. 

They stay wrapped up in each other, still feeling the edge of arousal but slowly coming down from the height. Riley’s hands stay dug into the headboard for what feel like a long time, her arms resting on his shoulders. Will ducks his head again to breathe into her skin, and then to kiss her neck. She sighs and slides down, pulling off of him with a slight wince that he immediately gentles, kissing her softly. She smiles, feeling as though her legs had turned to jelly. 

“Alright?” 

Riley yawns, then smiles, the afterglow making her silly. “Is that a comment or a critique?” 

Will chuckles and pulls her against him, cradling her to his chest. Riley hums and presses her ear to his chest to listen to his heartbeat. It sounds like any other, except that’s it’s going rather fast. His hands comb through her sweaty hair. Then he sits straight up, scaring her so badly she almost falls off the bed. 

“What-” Riley flails, righting herself with a glare. 

“Sorry, are you...I got so- I forgot to ask. Are you on the pill or anything?” Will asks, all wide eyed and embarrassed with spots of color on his cheekbones. 

Riley blinks, coming back to herself all at once, remembering where and who she is. 

“Don’t worry, I know how to take care of these things,” she teases, falling back on her tried and true method of avoidance and resolutely not thinking about the spread of potions, candles, and herbs on the bathroom counter at the hotel, the things designed to promote pregnancy and avoid pain.

Will just stares at her, so she waves a hand. 

“I have an IUD,” she answers, lying through her teeth and trying to ignore how her heart rate picks up at it. A cop. Of all the people in Chicago. He can probably tell. 

“Ok.” Will nods, expression turning pensive. “Is that- what is that?” 

Riley blinks, then she laughs, forgetting to be nervous. It’s probably the only thing that keeps her secret safe. 

***

They separate slowly, necessity and a desire for cleanliness driving them up and out of bed. Showering together is deemed to be the reasonable option, though what they were likely both imagining would be a fun and sexy time mostly turns into a logistical nightmare and a lot of giggling. When they get out, Will puts on his very blue uniform and they head downstairs to have breakfast. 

Riley watches him putter around the kitchen, disallowed from helping since Will noticed in the shower that she was sore and walking a little funny. 

“I’m really fine. A first time never killed anyone. Or a second.” She smiles and takes a sip of cheap coffee from the tacky ‘Visit Chicago’ mug she’s not sure why he has. If he was allowed to know, she might have asked to take it home with her. 

Will gives her a disapproving look as he sits down with the eggs, pushing one of the remarkably full plates in her direction. “I thought maybe you were just saying it.” 

She raises an eyebrow at him and he backpedals. “It’s- I’ve had women say that before, just as a sexy thing, it’s not-”

Riley waves him off, a sinking feeling growing in her chest at the thought of him doing what they did with others. It’s not a fair thought, of course, but it inspires a dark curiosity in her. How do they do it all the time? She shakes her head at her own ridiculousness and turns it around, makes it a good thing. He’ll have plenty of offers when she’s long gone, plenty of women to give love too. She’ll have her daughter and her family and he’ll have his women and some good memories. Everyone will be happy. 

“Teasing me again?” Will laughs and rubs at the back of his head. “Anyway, I should have been more careful with you either way, let me get you something to make up for it?”

She laughs. “I chose not to tell you, and you’re making me breakfast. This is a lot of food, by the way, how much do you think I eat?”

Will just shrugs, and proceeds to eat an alarming amount of eggs in a short amount of time while Riley picks at her plate, eating like a normal person. They watch each other on an off, trading small smiles and trailing glances. The fire inside her hadn’t gone out all the way, only dimmed to a gentle warmth. 

Riley pauses to look over at the microwave clock. “When do you have to be at work?” 

He turns his head and winces. “Like, twenty minutes ago.” 

“Uh oh.” 

“Yeah.” He pushes up from the table and reaches over to brush his fingers over her cheekbone, eyes soft. Riley looks away, and he chuckles before leaning down to kiss her. That, she can do. Riley catches the back of his neck and pulls him to her, running her tongue along the seam of his lips, just like he’d done the day before. Will pulls away with a look of regret. 

“Stay as long as you want?” 

Riley smiles at him, the only thing she can really offer. “Ok.” 

Will smiles back and picks up his keys from the counter, slips his phone into his pocket. Riley watches him as he leaves through the kitchen entryway, and then immediately runs back in with a wild look in his eye. “I forgot to give you my number.” 

Riley has to put her cup down before she drops it, and is laughing too hard to put it in the phone when he tells her, tears stinging her eyes. 

Will shakes his head, writing it down on an already ripped open envelope for her. “I just didn’t want you to think that I was a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy.” 

Riley smiles, but it sends a spike of dread through her as he turns away, giving her one last wave as he leaves for good. But melancholy doesn’t suit her, so she gets up, determined to enjoy herself. It’s already past the point where Riley could feasibly sneak back into the hotel without Kala the early riser noticing how long she’d really been gone, and she’s adamantly curious. 

Will’s house is clearly not the starter house of a bachelor, but the home he grew up in. The evidence of it is all over the walls and hanging in the air like a scent. The building itself has the sense of being lived in. The fixtures are well used but not broken. There are some scratches at the back door that clearly came from a family dog. She finds the place where one of his parents marked his height each year, and smiles as she trails her fingers over it. It ends at 16, and the line there is faint, as though the person making it had struggled to reach that high. His mother then, much shorter than he grew to be. 

Riley moves on, poking her way through the cluttered dining room, which clearly gets used as a makeshift office, and into the living room. There’s a framed picture on the wall of a group of people standing in a clump in what seems to be the same house, though they don’t all look related. She cocks her head to the side, looking at the different faces. There’s Will, and an older man next to him with his hand on his shoulder. His father, most likely. But the others all look different. A police force photo? Some kind of men’s club? She shakes her head and turns around, looking for more. 

There’s a line of photographs on the mantel, some of Will with what are clearly his parents, but also more of the same men in the large group shot. A hispanic man with laughter in his eyes and his hand raised up towards the camera as if to push it away, another of an intense and frowning blond with his arm around someone folded out of the picture, and a grinning brunette with a pointy face. His family after all, then. 

Riley’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she digs it out, half expecting it to be Will before realizes that she hadn’t given him her number yet. Strictly speaking, she doesn’t have to. It would be easy now to just disappear. She frowns and flips the phone open, deciding not to decide. 

**Are you coming back?** Kala. 

Not when. Riley winces and types back without putting too much thought into it. _Yes, just finishing up here_

**Good, I was getting worried.**

Guilt claws at her throat. _Sorry! Be back soon_

Riley sighs and slips her phone back into her pocket, a headache forming behind her eyes. She needs to find out if she’s pregnant. But either way, the right thing to do would be to leave and not come back. It’s not good that she likes him, that she’s thinking about coming back for more than just what he can give her. Warning stories about witches who’d been thrown out for this very thing, their children kept from them, come back to her. Like Angelica. The traitor witch. 

Riley had been too young to really understand what had happened to her, but their aunts and sisters had made sure to warn both Riley and Kala about it when they got older, a severe look in their eyes as they talked about betrayal and putting others at risk. Riley had slumped in her seat, afraid, as Kala sat up straighter. But she isn’t that little girl anymore. Getting emotionally involved with Will would been a mistake. She needs to keep it clinical, focus only on the future. 

Riley straightens her shoulders and goes back upstairs for her things. She’d been walking around in just the shirt Will had handed her all morning, felt it brushing against her thighs and smirking whenever Will’s glance caught on it. She strips it off and drops it on the laundry pile which seems to be hiding a desk chair, rolling her eyes at the fact that his laundry hamper is clearly full of clean clothes and on the other side of the room. 

There’s also a smaller pile of clothes on the desk itself, set apart from the others. Curious, Riley picks up a shirt and finds it ripped along the back. Her fingers itch to repair it with magic, to simply mend it like new, especially when she finds the rest of the small pile in a similar state of disrepair, but she wouldn't be able to explain it, so she can’t do it. That’s the rule. 

Riley turns away from the desk and picks up her own clothes from where they’re scattered around the room. Her shirt had been kicked under the bed, her pants were somehow on the other side, her underwear was in the bed, and her bra had ended up on the bedside table. It might have been embarrassing if she hadn’t been alone, because if Will was still in the room he’d tease her, and probably make a show of picking it up, handing it to her, his fingers would caress her wrist… 

She snorts and slips the offending piece of clothing back on, irritated with herself for letting her hormones run rampant. She looks around for her necklace and spots it on top of an overturned notepad, wrapped up and placed there in an intentional sort of way, but not by her. Sighing, she picks it up, flipping to notepad over for good measure, and pauses. 

‘Meet Schedule’ it says. Riley scans it, smiling. It looks like a rotation schedule for some kind of boys night, with notes like ‘Diego brings snacks’ and ‘Felix apartment too small/in center of city for run’ all along the sides. At the bottom there’s a careless drawing of a tree, a twisting symbol, and a pair of eyes. Doodles. She shakes her head and flips it back over, trailing her fingers along the back of Will’s everyday life. Policing the streets, buying coffee for strange girls, and making the roster for his game nights. It makes her sad, but mostly it makes her mischievous, and wanting to leave a permanent mark on his life the way he could on hers. 

Scanning the room for anything helpful, her gaze lands first on the full length mirror shoved in the corner, but she quickly moves on. There’s much to be done with mirrors, but nothing she needs right now. Piles of clothes, a gently used suitcase, diploma hanging on the wall. His closet door stands open, and the jacket from the day before is hooked on the door handle. She cocks her head and drifts over to pick it up, feeling the well-worn leather under her fingers. It’s something he wears a lot, is close to him probably everyday he’s not in uniform. It might a well still be warm. 

Smiling, she lays it flat on the bed and smoothes it out, presenting a stable surface to work on. If she had the tools of her garden she could do more, but as it is she settles for a low grade protection spell passing from her hands and into the leather, embedded as an invisible stain. On impulse, she picks it up and holds it to her chest, pleased. 

Even if she never sees him again, which might be for the best, she’ll be a part of his life. The thought of finding another man makes her skin crawl, her intuition kicking into gear. But really, it wouldn’t be so terrible. She could make Kala understand her choice to delay a year or go to one of those clinics maybe, like some of the more modern witches do. 

Nodding to herself, Riley hooks the jacket back on the handle and leaves the room, thinking that maybe she’ll never see it, or him, again. 

***

“There you are!” Kala tosses a pillow at her as soon as she walks through the door. It goes wide, probably on purpose, and knocks over the empty trash can. Riley ducks her head, embarrassed. Kala does not look impressed, standing next to her bed in the hotel bathrobe. 

Riley smiles at her, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear as she loiters by the door. “Hi Kala.” 

“Hi Riley,” Kala mocks and crosses her arms. “Well?”

Riley slips the rest of the way inside and closes the door so she can lean against it, trying not to remember being pushed up against other doors. The last thing she needs to do is blush. “Uh, I found someone?” 

Kala’s scowl melts, never one to stay irritated for long. Her shoulders droop. “Me too. It didn’t work though.” 

For a strange moment, Riley doesn’t know what she means. Then she remembers the ritual, the whole point. It’s not making dinner and messing around, holding onto wide shoulders and exploring unexpected softness. Will is not what matters here. She straightens up. 

“I’m sorry, maybe next time?” Riley drifts to the sink and gets herself a cup for water, mostly to have something to do with her hands. 

Kala hums, apparently unconvinced. “What about for you?”

“What?”

“Are you pregnant?”

Riley shrugs and takes a sip. “I haven’t checked yet.” 

“Ok.” Kala nods to herself, already pulling out her phone. “Do you want take out? But tell me when you do check, and I want to know everything! Why did you stay over night? You know we’re not supposed to.” 

“I wanted to increase my chances,” Riley responds promptly, which is partly true, even if it was an idea after the fact. An unexpected benefit at the very least. 

Kala’s eyebrows shoot up. “I see. That’s not a bad idea actually. If you did it in the morning it might still be a few minutes before you be able to do a spell for that one.” 

“How was it for you?” Riley asks, a little breathlessly, trying to distract her from asking more questions, fearful of getting to the part about whether or not she’ll see him again. It works. 

“Fine,” Kala says, but a blush creeps down her neck, and now that she’s looking Riley can see other marks as well, love bruises, like the ones Riley has on her inner thighs. Kala adjusts the collar of the robe. “He tried to get me to stay over too, but I had the decency to refuse.” 

Riley rolls her eyes. “Of course you did, you always do everything right. But how was it?” she demands, suddenly desperate to know if it was the same for Kala as it was for her. If she had the same confusing feelings. 

Kala shrugs, playing with her phone again. “It was fine.” 

“Just fine?”

Kala meets her eyes, then cracks a smile. “I liked it.” 

Riley lets out a sharp breath. “Me too.” 

It’s all she says, because what else can she say? That it was amazing? That he held her hand while he fucked her? That he brushed the hair away from her face so gently? That she woke up sore but more satisfied than she can ever remember? 

Riley can’t say these things, and she certainly can’t say that she texted him her number while she was in the cab, because she doesn’t have an explanation for that even for herself. So she says nothing as Kala talks about her night, cutting it down to the details and neatly packaging it back up for herself. It’s not a skill Riley has, the ability to look at her own experiences from the outside. If it were, maybe she would be able to think of it without having her heart rate pick up, or her palms sweat with incoming dread. 

Kala’s question hangs over her. Pregnant or not pregnant. She has to check. The excuse of waiting for the morning wanes into the afternoon as Riley listens to Kala talk. She could have tested it in the house, but she didn’t. She hadn’t done it when she got back to the hotel. She still doesn’t do it when Kala gets up from the bed, picking up delivered take out containers from lunch as she goes. Riley just watches her as she heads out the door, back into the fray, her mind curiously blank. The door closes with a polite snap. 

Riley picks at her fingers, trying to consider the question like Kala would. Really, it’s unlikely that she’d be pregnant already. They had taken spells to encourage it of course, lined them up like so many beauty products on the bathroom counter to sip while they did each others makeup. Still. It’s no guarantee. 

Resolved, Riley gets herself up and makes a beeline for the bathroom, kicking the door mostly shut behind her out of habit. She pulls the bluest candle on the wide sink forward and lights it with a wave of her hand, confidant in her intuition. She won’t be pregnant, and even if she is, it would be a good thing, the thing she came for. For all that he’s nice, Will just isn’t right. He’s too much, too complicated. 

Once the flame takes hold, Riley breathes in the scent, clearing her mind, thinking of how clear it will be when this is done. She can find someone else, someone less intense, less confusing. The focus should be on attributes anyway, not personality. 

Smiling, Riley sets one hand on the sink and curls her fingers, making a bracket around the candle, and lays the other against her stomach, gently breathing in. She draws her focus to a point, mouthing the words until she feels herself, her essence, and sense that it had changed. 

“Oh!” Riley drops her hand, leaning away from the counter like she’d been burned. Her reflection stares back at her, wide eyed and small. She almost doesn’t recognize it. “Oh.” 

It’s strange. She feels distant from her body. Riley tilts her head. Her reflection smiles, the future laid out before her. Then the present reasserts itself, and her expression cracks. 

Predictably, her phone rings while she’s crying in the bathroom, hunched over the still burning candle. She jerks up, staring through the door crack to where her phone lies on the bed, lit up against the generic comforter. It’s loud in the otherwise quiet space, silent except for her heaving breaths. No one has that number but Kala and Will, and she can’t talk to either of them right now. 

Bent over at the waist so far her forehead is almost touching the counter, Riley tries to hold her breath until the phone stops ringing, but she can’t do anything about the tears until they run their course. She breathes and whimpers and rubs at her eyes until she’s calm enough to stand up straight for more than a minute at a time. She doesn’t look at herself as she splashes water on her face, strangely unable to meet her own eyes. 

Time to leave Chicago, to go home and start her life. If she’s lucky, Kala will be pregnant too, and they can get the next train. Or rent a car, see the city disappear behind them in the mirror.

On the bed, the phone beeps, indicating that she has a message. It’s old and cheap, and it will continue to beep until she either listens to it or deletes it. Riley presses her hand against her stomach and takes a deep breath before going back out, her spine straight as straight as she can make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes.   
> also wow y’all I wonder who Kala might have found?? Who could it be.   
> Real talk, we will not be seeing Wolfgang in this fic (that’s the next one). 
> 
> paradiamond.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley is conflicted, Kala is acting strange, and Will is hiding something.

The air in Chicago this time is year is cold, prompting the entire city to layer up. Riley had learned her lesson about the weather and stays warm with her charmed necklace pressed to her skin under her shirt, the sweater on top mostly for show. Still, she’s gratified to see Will in his jacket, the magical protection emanating off of it in a soft glow that only she can see. 

“What does a media relations rep even do?” Will asks, in clear reference to her fictional job search. 

“Nothing exciting,” Riley answers, mostly because she doesn’t really know. She had only picked it because she thought it would be too boring for anyone to ask about. In her real life she wants to help train the young witches, but it’s not like she has a teaching degree or any significant knowledge on a non-magical subject she can tell him about. 

“Do you like it?” 

Riley shrugs. “It’s a job. Hopefully one day I’ll be media director, and call the shots.” 

Will nods as though this makes sense to him, which it really shouldn’t. 

Capitalizing on the lull, Riley jumps at the opportunity to distract him, grabbing his arm and pointing to a statue in the park they’d been circling. “Who is that?” 

He grins down at her. “I have no idea, let’s find out.” 

They walk over the the large and boring statue of a man on a horse in companionable silence, though Riley’s stomach churns with the shame from the lie. Again. It’s far too soon to be morning sickness. 

Her every moment is consumed by lies. When she’s with Kala, it’s with the knowledge that she still had yet to tell her closest sister that she’s pregnant, something Kala would dearly love to know and celebrate. It’s even worse now. When she’s with Will, it’s like a sucking black hole. 

She knows in her heart that she should tell him about the baby, even if her mind doesn’t agree. It’s obvious that he would care, he’s not like those other men the elders talk about. Even if he decided that he didn’t want to be with her, which would really be the best possible outcome in that scenario, it would still be a disaster. It would mean admitting to the lies and betraying her coven. With no good options, Riley buries it instead and resolves to just stick with the plan. 

There’s no point in stopping now. It’s far too late to take it back. All she can do is try to enjoy herself while it lasts, and give Will an amazing weekend to remember later since she can’t give him a daughter.

“Huh,” Will says, nudging the plaque with his foot. “He’s a general.” 

“So many statues of generals.” 

“Well it’s the leaders who get the acclaim, I guess,” Will says, almost wistfully. Then he catches her staring, and leads them away. “What time is the concert?” 

“Ten.” 

“Past my bedtime.” 

Riley giggles. “You don’t have work tomorrow.” 

“That’s true, thank god,” Will says as he leads her out of the park, catching her interest. 

“Where are we going now?” 

Will raises up arm to catch her hand as they cross the street. “I was thinking you might want to meet some of my friends?” 

“The people in your picture?” 

He stops in the middle of the street and then catches himself, pulling her all the way across. She laughs and tugs his hand. “I pay attention.” 

“Yeah.” Will smiles at her sheepishly. “You’re good with noticing things, almost like a cop.” 

Riley rolls her eyes. “Some people might not like being called a cop.” 

“Ouch. But yes, those friends.” 

She opens her mouth to teases him again, and trips over a crack. She stumbles, one of her knees giving out, and it’s only Will catching her that stops her from completely falling to the ground. As she rights herself, a cold sweat breaks out across the back of her neck. 

“Woah there, you alright?” 

Riley looks up and laughs, though it sounds a little off. “Yeah, it just startled me.” 

Will tugs her closer and makes a joke that Riley barely hears, too busy wondering if she almost just lost their very new baby and preoccupied over the fact that she can’t voice the thought. 

***

Surprisingly, not all of Will’s friends are cops. 

She cocks her head to the side and surveys the room as Will talks to the nearest. From the ragtag group in the picture, Riley had assumed that the common factor had to be the police force, but the group in front of her is far too varied for that. 

“Felix,” one of them says, eyeing her up and down before offering his hand. Riley takes it, watching him send a significant look in Will’s direction. Diego had done the same, and so had the three others she’d been introduced to. It makes her nervous, mostly because of how obvious it is that they were expecting her, that Will had talked to these people about her specifically. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Riley.” 

Felix grins, all teeth. “I know.” 

She doesn’t wince, but it’s a near thing. Will can obviously tell that she’s uncomfortable, because he steers her away from him and over to the bar after a brief conversation about another one of their many friends who was apparently ‘busy’ with a woman. Riley narrowly avoids rolling her eyes as Will leads her away. “Sorry, my friends can be a little enthusiastic.” 

“It’s ok,” Riley responds, still distracted. She picks at her fingernails, the nervous habit coming to the surface. 

Best case scenario is that Will always gets this excited about a new girl, that he always tells these people he’s obviously close to when he meets someone. He’s an enthusiastic person, she reasons, it’s not out of the question that he might do this for all of them. 

The worst case scenario would be that he’s in love with her. It sends an itch up Riley’s spine, but she reasons her way through. It’s far too soon for that. 

“Will! Over here!” yells an older man, waving a beer in their direction. 

Will waves and leans down to Riley’s ear. “That’s my dad.” 

Riley blinks. “Oh. I didn’t realize…” 

“Hm?” Will pauses, glancing back at her, which also reminds her to move. 

“I thought he was dead, I think. Don’t you live in your house from when you were young?” 

“Yeah, but Dad moved in with some of his buddies a while back. They didn’t want to live right in the city.” 

Riley nods, her eyes fixed on the man watching her approach. She hadn't realized that it was normal for grown adults to live together like that, but then again, her family did isolate themselves as much as possible. Maybe things had changed in recent years. 

Will’s father slaps him on the back as they slide into the booth with him. “There you are! And this must be your girl!” 

Riley winces and sees Will do the same. “Dad-” 

“Sorry!” He puts his hands up. “Maybe I’m an old timer now. In any case, Riley, it’s good to meet you.” 

“Thank you,” she responds, trying not to think about how Will hadn’t needed to introduce her. It was only enthusiasm, after all. 

“How are you liking Chicago? Will says you’re moving here.” 

“It’s nice, but there might not be enough green for me,” Riley says, taking the opportunity to lay the groundwork for her eventual disappearance. Soon she’ll just be a girl that almost moved to Chicago, nothing exciting. But Will’s father waves a hand. 

“That’s ridiculous. We’ve got Forest Glen, Dan Ryan, and Bunker Hill all right near here. Plenty of green if you want it!”

Riley raises her eyebrows at him, casting a glance Will’s way. “You know a lot about forests.” 

“We go camping a lot,” Will answers, waving a hand as his father nods, not quite hiding a smile behind his beer. 

“Yeah. We’re an outdoorsy kind of people. You?” his father asks, peering at Riley intently. 

She leans away, a bit nervous at the sudden intensity of attention. “Yes, I like the outdoors quite a lot.” 

Mostly for magical purposes, but they don’t need to know that the connection to the earth is important for magical response. It’s why they avoid big cities as a rule. 

“Good,” he says, looking away to gesture for another beer, adding his empty to the growing pile. Riley frowns at it, thinking that he should be significantly drunker after that many. But perhaps the pile is not only his. 

Curious, she glances at Will to see what he makes of it, but sees that he’s busy watching her. She smiles and he smiles back, but the nervous edge in his eye doesn’t dissipate until she slips her hand into his under the table. 

“Alright?” 

“Course. Want to get out of here? We still have the concert.” 

A concert that didn’t start for another five hours. Riley strokes his hand. “Sure.” 

“Yeah,” Will’s father drawls, tasting them in the air and making Riley reevaluate how drunk he is. “You kids get out of here and have fun!” 

“Jesus. Ok dad!” Will says, falsely cheerful, and begins ushering Riley out of the booth. 

She bites her lip to keep from laughing, but loses it when Will’s father loudly comments that it’s his job to embarrass Will, and that he’s always taken his work very seriously. From the other side, several of the men yell back and raise their glasses, apparently just in it for the noise. Diego winks at her as they pass. Riley watches it all with the fascination of someone visiting a zoo, going so far as to look back through the door as they leave. 

“You have very strange friends.” 

Oddly, Will freezes. “What do you mean?” 

Riley blinks. “Just that they are very...loud.” 

He laughs. “Yeah, that’s the guys.” 

She shakes her head. “I suppose I do not have very many guy friends.” 

“Brothers?” 

“No. I have sisters.” 

“How many?” 

Riley fidgets with her bracelet, unsure about how to answer. Strictly speaking, she has no biological sisters. What she should have said was that she has many cousins, it’s closer to a concept he will understand. 

“Three,” she settles on finally, knowing that it doesn’t really matter. He’ll never get close enough to find out she’s lying. “Do you have siblings?” 

Will hums and, strangely, doesn’t answer. 

***

The concert is loud and crowded, just like Riley likes it. But it’s immediately clear that Will doesn’t like it as much. 

“This isn’t the kind of place a cop usually goes!” Will shouts, unnecessarily since they’re right next to each other. 

Riley smiles and nods her head vigorously, excited by all the movement, her senses heightened by the way she can feel the sound in the air. “Do you like it?” 

“Uh, yeah!” Will yells again, looking out over the crowd instead of at her, visibly nervous. 

“It’s ok if it’s not your thing.” 

“No it’s great!” he yells again, now looking so strained that she grabs his hand to pull him off to the side, away from the pulsing mob. 

Tension bleeds off of him, though he relaxes somewhat with his back to the wall. 

“Cop freak out?” she teases, but rubs her thumb into his hand in comforting circles. 

He shrugs. “Something like that. It’s fine.” 

Riley rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to be the big man with me.” 

Smiling, Will leans down to kiss her softly, the contrast between him and the rest of the room palpable and interesting. She turns and rubs her cheek against his as she pulls away. Will sighs. “I’m not afraid of it, or anything. It’s just a lot at once.” 

“Makes sense. Want to get out of here?” 

Will hesitates. “You wanted to see the band.” 

“Band.” She smirks and shakes her head. “They’re not- never mind. There will be many other shows.” And only very few night to themselves, she thinks but doesn’t say. She doesn’t want one of their experiences to be tainted for him, not when she’ll be out of his life forever soon. 

“Group, then. Artist?” He shakes his head. “But if you’re sure-” 

“I am.” She takes his hand. “Besides, I hear cops have early bedtimes.” 

Will smiles as she leads him out of the space, easily navigating through the throngs of people with only a little regret that fades as soon as they hit the street and she watches him relax. It gratifies her, especially since Kala is so stressed. She doesn’t want either of them to be miserable, but both at the same time is intolerable. 

Kala had been curt and pensive when Riley stopped by the hotel to change, Will waiting outside by the car. It was strange, Riley had been prepared for a barrage of questions, particularly pertaining to why exactly Riley needed to spend so much time with this one man, but they didn’t come. It unnerved her, even more so when she asked about Kala’s man and received only a hum where before there had been a waterfall. But Kala only demurred, claiming she needed to focus on the potion she had cooking in the bathroom. 

Riley left without thinking about it too much, eager to get back to Will and the limited amount of time left in their fantasy. But looking back, it had been off putting. 

They go back to Will’s house, the route now more familiar to her than anything else in the city. She wonders if she’ll still remember it later on, when their paths had diverged so sharply as to be irreconcilable. There won’t be any reason to come here again, Riley thinks as she trails her fingers along the glass of the car window, Will playing with her other hand between them as he drives. 

They glides through the nearly empty residential streets, coming to a smooth stop in front of his house. He’d left the light on in his room, lighting it up like a beacon in the dark. Riley looks at it as they walk up to the door, thinking about nothing in particular. The inside is quiet, and neither of them make much of a show about doing anything before they go upstairs, eager to be wrapped up in each other again. 

Will sits on the bed and tugs her down, rolling when she settles in his arms to lay them side by side. Their arms wrap around each other, legs slide in between, like a puzzle coming together. Riley hums when Will kisses her, unhurried. The initial urgency had burned away, leaving behind something sweet and comfortable in its wake. They separate as easily as they had come together, easing back to look at each other in the eyes. 

Riley flutters her fingers on his arms. “Let’s try something new.” 

Will laughs. “Bored already?”

Riley giggles and presses close, a wicked smile creeping up on her face. “No, but I’m curious. I want to try everything.” 

Humming, Will leans down and presses a kiss to the base of her throat. “We have time.” 

If he notices Riley’s pulse jump, he doesn’t say. 

She distracts herself by playing with his hands. “What kind of positions do you like?” 

Will laughs, just like she knew he would. “I don’t know, all of them?” 

“Be serious, please.” 

“Of course. This is a really serious conversation.” 

Riley ignores him, thinking. Some of her ideas are frankly infeasible and come from books, too complicated for the lazy feeling in her bones. Others through, are right there for the taking. 

“Here, sit up,” she urges, freshly inspired. 

Will mock groans but does as she says, rising to his knees. She sets about undressing them, stripping off their clothes in quick, efficient movements. Apparently content to be treated like a doll, Will does the minimal amount of moving he needs to do to get naked, lifting his legs and turning when she wants him to, but mainly just watching and touching as he pleases. His hands trace down the side of her breast, across her back. Riley tosses her underwear away and touches him back, content to explore for now. It’s only when he tickles her that Riley laughs and straightens up, turning around to set her back against his chest. 

“Oh,” Will’s hands slide up her back, tracing the long line of her spine. “I see what you're saying.” 

“Yeah?” She moves her hips in small circles against him, feeling him hardening against her, pressed tight up against her back. He wraps an arm around her waist and pushes back, holding her tight. Riley gasps. 

“Yeah,” Will says, mouth directly behind her ear. She shivers, and he trails his lips down her neck, urging her forward as he goes. Riley cooperates, the now familiar eagerness starting to build under her skin as she shifts to his hands and knees. Will follows her down, his clever mouth working its way down her spine and then back up. 

It's an interesting sort of thrill, the kind that comes with voluntary submission. 

Will sets his hands on her hips, then pauses. “Hm.”

“What?” Riley cranes her neck back, trying to look at him. 

“I can’t really see you. It seems, I don’t know. I think I don’t like it.” His fingers dance along her sides, reminding her of when he had pulled her back against his chest and touched her all over, slid his hand between her legs and put his mouth at her ear, whispering all the things he’d love to do to her as he brought her off with his hand. He hadn’t been able to see her then, either, but they had been close, almost occupying the same space. It wasn’t the same. 

“What if we…” Riley trails off, trying to come up with a solution but afraid to push. Would he just accept it and do something he didn’t want to do? She hopes not. 

“Hang on,” Will says, and gets off the bed, startling her. Riley blinks, feeling ridiculous now that she’s alone and on her knees instead of about to have sex, and lowers herself down, regretting the entire idea. 

She folds her arms under her chin and watches Will push the clothes pile out of the way of the mirror, then pull the mirror to the center of the wall, directly across from the bed. Riley perks up, interested. “Oh.” 

Will turns back to her, naked and blushing a bit at the ears. “I just thought-” 

“It’s a good idea, come back here.” 

They discover that they don’t like from behind unless they can see each other in the mirror, and then Riley likes it very much. She feels deep, like Lilith, rebellion for herself and taking the consequences. Will seems to like it too, watching her intently as he rocks into her, taking advantage of the position to take her deep and slow, his chest heaving as he moves. 

For a moment, Riley lets her eyes slip shut, content with the sensation and with Will’s answering contentment. But then she opens them again, meeting Will’s eyes in the mirror. This is what they mean by locking eyes, she thinks. His color is high, the flush spreading down to his chest. He holds her tight, but not too tight, keeping the sting off. 

When it hits, her orgasm is almost a surprise, sneaking up on her while she was preoccupied with the compounding sensations. Will picks up the pace, just a bit, and it spurs her on to roll back, a primal instinct. The dominoes fall just right, hands and eyes and vagina and shaking muscles, arms almost giving up. Riley cries out, feeling it roll through her from her core to her toes, and Will presses down on her, gasping, still holding her up by the hips but plastered against her back. His hips stutter, drawing a twinge of just this side of too much from her, and then he groans in her ear, coming inside her. Riley gasps, the sensation still new and exciting, taboo. 

They slide down, falling down to the bed in an undignified heap that would probably be funny if she wasn’t so spent. Riley wants to stretch, to roll over so Will’s knee isn't jabbing her, but she stays still, basking in the silence. There’s a humming in her ears. 

“Phone,” Will says, face down next to her, his hand wrapped all the way around her forearm. 

Riley hums in agreement, running her fingers along his scalp. His hair is really too short for her run her fingers through though-

“It’s yours, Riles.” 

“Oh, right.” She blinks, then leans over get it, but Will is already holding it out to her, a smirk on his face. Riley flips it open, questioning him as she goes. “Riles?” 

“Yeah, you don’t like it?” 

“No, it’s fine,” she mutters, distracted by Kala’s massage. 

**Come home.**

Riley blinks. “It’s my rommate. She said I should come home.” 

Will sits up, suddenly sharp eyed. “Is she alright?”

“I think so,” Riley says, trying in her response. _Emergency?_

“I’ll drive you.” 

“Thanks.” Riley gets up and starts throwing on clothes. Her phone buzzes in her hand again. 

**No, but come back**

***

Riley walks in to find Kala is in the bathroom. “Kala?” 

“One second!” 

Riley sits on the bed, worried. Her hand automatically goes to her stomach, feeling the life there, comforting and bright. Then Kala comes out, a line between her eyebrows. Riley jumps up. 

“Are you alright-” 

“I’m pregnant.” 

“Oh.” 

Kala nods, setting her hand on her stomach. “Yes, and I’d like to leave as soon as possible. What about you? How much longer do you think you need?” 

Riley blinks. For all her lying to Will, she has almost no practice in lying to Kala. Even in the past few days it had mostly been lies of omission. “I’m- I’m not sure.” 

“How many times have you had sex with him?” 

“A few,” Riley says, and then winces. “Sorry, I’m just embarrassed I think.” 

“Don’t be. When’s the last time you checked? I’ll-” 

“I just did, while you were in the bathroom.” It’s a half truth, one that makes her sick. She had been misleading Kala for days. Her own coven sister, her true family. 

Kala pouts. “Oh, well, have some my improved mix and try again?”

“Sure, thank you,” Riley says, nodding, the guilt making her sick to her stomach. She’ll throw the potion away, not wanting to interfere with the baby already there. Lying again. 

“You’re welcome.” Kala goes over to the window, peeking out through the curtain of their fifth floor room, a pinched look on her face. Riley bites her lip, missing home too. 

“Kala? Just one more day. After that, I’ll try again a different time.” 

Kala turns back and purses her lips. They had always planned to have their pregnancies together, but whatever is making her so antsy to leave apparently wins out, because she nods. “Ok. I don’t want you to be wasting your time.” 

“Me either.” 

“Are you alright?” 

Riley blinks, ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest. “Yes, of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! I’m bad about getting distracted. 
> 
> paradiamond.tumblr.com for more nonsense (: 
> 
> Also, my favorite draft note: ‘Riley meets Felix and Will’s other friend and some other werewolves, but not Wolfgang, who is moping around/stalking Kala’. lol


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley's time with Will runs out, but fate seems to want to push them back together.

Riley’s last day in Chicago is rainy. 

It seems fitting for her mood, which had vacillated between relieved calm and churning panic ever since Kala made her announcement. On the one hand, she gets to go back home, where she belongs. Her coven Sisters, the mentors and the little ones, they’re all waiting for them to come home, so excited Riley can feel it from cities away. No hiding there, only the love and acceptance of her people, only magic candles and long nights of brewing with Kala. Next to that, there’s really nothing else. 

Not even Will tugging on her free hand, apparently unbothered by the rain and eager to show her more, to take her everywhere. 

“It’s Sunday, so usually the park is full, but since it’s raining I don’t think many people will be there.” 

Riley fixes a smile on her face and focuses on the moment, one of her last in the haze of the weekend. “Tourists?” 

Will shakes his head. “No, I haven’t really brought you to the tourist places. I figure anyone can find those, and you’ll have plenty of time once you’re settled to see the bean sculpture and everything.” 

“Right,” Riley says, fidgeting with her coffee. 

“What’s wrong?” 

She blinks and looks up. “What?” 

“You sounded off. Is everything ok?” 

The wind shifts, making her shiver a bit even under the protective blanket of her magic. Will wraps an arm around her shoulders, their raincoats squeaking together. Riley had always been an open book to those who know her, and Will had dropped into place faster than most. Part of the danger of spending so much time together. But it’s also an opportunity. 

Sighing, she leans into his touch. “The job search isn’t going well.” 

Will hums. “I thought you already had a job.” 

“So did I.” Riley looks up and smiles self-deprecatingly. 

“Got it. That’s rough, I’m really sorry.” 

“Me too,” she says, deliberately. “I might not be able to move here now.” 

Will freezes, causing him to stop dead in the middle of the path and Riley to be thrown off balance for a seconds before he abruptly starts walking again, his movements stiff and jerky. She watches him, nervous in spite of herself. “Will?” 

“Sorry I just- I thought it was a done deal.” 

Riley shrugs, trying to project an air of casual disappointment. “I think it never is until a contract is signed.” 

“That’s true,” Will says, clearly distracted, staring off into the middle distance. 

Riley’s heart beats hard in her chest, fearful of hurting him but hoping that it will be like a band-aid. The sooner she can rip it off, the better for both of them. He cares, that much is clear, but he’ll care again, and soon. Anyone who falls for a girl this fast won’t have a problem doing it again. 

Still, she doesn’t want to hurt him. “It might not happen. I just don’t know yet.” 

“Yeah.” Will’s arm drops from her shoulder to her waist, holding her close. “I’m sure it will be fine. Where do you live again?” 

“California,” she answers, hoping against hope that he won’t ask her to clarify. It hadn’t occurred to her to look up a specific city. What if she makes something up and he looks it up on his phone? She crowds closer to him, desperate for a distraction. “I wouldn’t worry about it right now. The job might still come through, even if it’s not today, and then it’s just a matter of finding the right place.” 

Will nods. “Yeah. We have each other’s numbers. I shouldn’t- it’ll be fine.” 

“Yes,” Riley says, as firmly as she can. 

***

Will’s house seems quiet and strange when they get back, hours later. 

The taste of curry still sits nicely on her tongue, her contribution to their Sunday meal times. Will’s had been a strange fast food place for lunch that he insisted was the best. Cop food. Riley ate it with a smile, even though she vastly preferred her own choice. 

“I still say I was ganged up on,” Will complains, kicking the door shut with a playful look of offence. 

Riley shrugs and leads him further into the house. “Women stick together, you should know that.” 

He paid for her lunch so she got back at him by paying for his dinner, using his own words against him. The waitress had supported her, too busy making eyes at Will to really care either way. It was comforting, watching her watch him, and Riley hopes he’ll use the number she slipped him once Riley is gone. 

Will catches her by the waist as she passes by the couch, dropping them both down onto it with a dull thump. Riley smiles and settles herself on top of him, straddling his hips and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Hello.” 

“Hello,” Will says, mostly into her neck. Riley shivers as he runs his lips from behind her ear to the base of her jaw. There are different types of sex, she’s quickly coming to realize, at least when it comes to Will. The range from intense to playful is large, and tantalizing to explore. 

As though he can hear what she’s thinking, Will leans back to strip off his shirt, eying her up and down suggestively, the mischief coming off of him in waves. He tosses it to the side. Riley watches it hit the ground and spies more clothes under a chair. She nods at it. “Wild sex?” 

Will follows her gaze and then laughs. “Uh, no. Nothing like that.” 

“You have clothes all over your house. Are you a secret nudist maybe?” she asks, playing with the soft hairs at the base of his skull. 

“Something like that,” Will says, lowering his mouth back to her throat. Distracting her from the topic, she realizes, and only because she had done the same thing to him multiple times. It’s intriguing, and a mystery for another girl to crack. When Riley leaves, she won’t be coming back. 

The sun is going down, the end of their last day together creeping closer. She doesn’t let it bother her, working to think of it like the end of a good book. She has a better story inside her, the start of something new. But for tonight, she has him, she has just herself and her desires. 

Will slides his hands under her shirt, up and over her back. 

“Let’s go upstairs,” she says in his ear, and he hums, a deep rumble in his chest. 

“Great idea.” 

They trip up the stairs and fall into bed together, but Riley stays acutely aware of the fact that she’s the only one who knows it’s for the last time. Maybe that’s why it seems vague, like something from a dream. She feels like she has trouble keeping track of herself, of where her limbs are or what her mouth is doing at any given time, despite her clear head. 

They roll once, twice. Will spoons up behind her and they rock together on their sides. Will’s hands are tantalizingly free and at new angles, just like they had been a few nights before, so familiar already. He strokes up her side, massages her breasts, his breath hot on the back of her neck. It makes her wonder how much she’ll remember about this, what she’ll retain. Scent is supposed to be the sense tied most closely to memory, she remembers that from a mostly forgotten science lesson, doodling in her notebook. What was Will like in school? What will he be like in ten years? 

Riley turns her face into the pillow, and inhales. 

“Here, sit up, I want to try something,” Will murmurs, urging her up. 

Riley follows him blindly, not bothering to make a cute comment. It’s too dear, too final. 

They have sex sitting up, face to face. Riley keeps him close, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her legs hooked around his waist, moving slow. She keeps her eyes closed. 

“You know,” Will says when they’re done, and for a cop he’s pretty terrible at pretending to be casual. “You can always use my spare room while you find a job.”

Riley laughs, thanking him, but her heart is pounding so loudly she fears he can feel it. She wants to leave now, to get away from this mess she’d made. But she has to wait, has to do it right. 

Pretending to drift off to sleep isn’t fun. Thinking about the callousness of her behavior sends a sharp jolt through her chest. Wondering at the rules of her coven, what she had put her entire soul into, makes her uncomfortable, sweat dripping down her back in a cold line. They can’t be wrong. It must just be her, too weak to do this right. It’s her fault, she realizes, remembering her own poor decision making. She wasn’t supposed to spend the night the first time, let alone keep coming back. 

She takes a deep breath and starts to ease out of Will’s grasp, ready for the moment when he starts to wake up and reaches for her, his eyes clouded. It’s an easy thing to draw her hand through his hair, magically sending him back into deeper sleep. His eyes drop closed, and she presses a kiss to his forehead as he drifts off again. 

Sneaking out of his house makes her feel like a thief. Technically she is a thief, since she had taken his flannel shirt from the back of his chair, only noticing the rip in the shoulder when she settles into the cab she called. She fingers it nervously, sure she sees his neighbor’s curtain move, but keeps her back straight. 

“Where to?” The cabbie gives her a professional smile, his eyes far away. 

Riley returns the gesture and gives the hotel address without thinking, rattling it off. She’s sure she’ll forget that part when it’s all over. It’s over now. 

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. Kala. 

**Coming home?**

Riley smiles, some of her anxiety dissipating. _Yes, be there soon._

She presses send and then switches to Will’s contact, doing what she has to do. 

_Sorry, I needed to run, but I’ll see you soon!_

She feels resolute as she presses send. Over the next few days their messages will dwindle. She makes her excuses, he’ll accept them and move on. 

Riley settles back against the seat and stares as the city goes by. Hundreds of years of windom passed from mother to daughter. They can’t all be wrong. It’s impossible. 

***

The next few days are difficult. 

Her family welcomes her back just like she knew they would, with smiles and touches and spells, ensuring safety, checking vitals, solidifying bonds. 

“Yes, I’m so happy,” Riley says again and again, meaning it but for the itch in her fingers to run through short, soft hair. The shiver that runs up her spine when she remembers too much. It’s all too much, sometimes. Forgetting is difficult. 

They have a party, a traditional celebration of life, and she thinks about the dirty bar he took her to. Wonders if he’s there now, with his friend family, complaining about the girl that snuck out of his bed to a willing audience. They’ll pound him on the back, tell him there’s plenty of others out there for him. He’ll moves on. 

She goes into town with Kala for supplies and food, and watches the men go by, wondering. 

Time seems to pass without her, leaving her behind in Chicago. Her sisters fall back into their normal lives. Kala goes back to work at the lab. Riley spends a lot of time in her garden, her place of healing. 

The new flowers are coming in nicely, magically protected from the storms and beasts of the world. Upstate New York isn’t always the most forgiving climate, but they make it safe for the things they love. She trails her fingers over the strange petals of a cabbage flower before moving over to her herbs and succulents. Pink and green, ringing the magical plants in a protective hoop. Sage. Aloe. Riley tends to them, and allows them to do their work on her in return. 

“Riley?” Kala calls, many rows over. 

“Over here!” 

Kala finds her easily, sticking out from the small plants, the little things with big potential. Her mother, now laid to rest with her ancestors in the graveyard down the path, raised vegetables and fruits, but Riley sticks to lavender and opuntia. The little plants seem to mock her today, misbehaving. She glad when Kala sits down next to her, distracting her from them. 

“How was work?” 

Kala shrugs. “It was good. I think I came up with a way to adapt the treatment set. Do you know when the dahlias will be full grown?” 

Riley looks over her shoulder. “Probably two weeks. Is that good?” 

“Yes,” Kala says, visibly preoccupied. 

They fall into silence, Riley pulling at the grass and wondering if it’s Kala’s work that’s keeping her distant or something else. She had been on the verge of this breakthrough when they left, trying to find a way to magically supplant the missing factors in the dementia medicine she worked on for the company. Witches all over the world could possibly benefit from it. 

“How long until they forget about us, do you think?” Kala asks, still looking down at the plants. 

Riley blinks. “Who?” 

“Them,” Kala says, very quietly. 

“Oh.” Riley bites her lip and pulls a dead leaf off a daisy plant. It’s strange. Kala hadn’t brought it up once since they’d been back, and she never talked about her man after the first night. But it’s nice, comforting to acknowledge that it happened, especially if Riley isn’t crazy for thinking about him. If Kala is doing it, it must be normal, must not be a sign that she’s going crazy. 

“I don’t know if they’ll ever forget, just like we won’t forget.” Riley glances over at Kala, who is now watching her openly. “But they’ll forget what it was like, where exactly we went, and the color of our eyes. And then they’ll find others. That’s what men do. They’ll both find another pretty girl to be kind to and eventually start a family with.” 

Kala nods. “You’re right. Sorry I don't know why I even-” 

Riley waves a hand. “It’s normal, I think. But they will, we don’t have to worry. A nice, normal, non-witchy family.” 

Kala laughs, making Riley laugh too. It’s simple like that. The earth beneath them, the future within them. Correct. 

“I prefer my witchy family.” Kala wraps her arm around Riley’s waist and leans in. Riley pushes back, feeling solid and happy instead of fragile. 

“Me too.” 

It’s easier after that. She stops trying to forget Will and accepts remembering him fondly for the rest of her life. 

***

Two months pass and Riley immerses herself in coven life, letting Will exists in her past. 

The memories are nice, funny, erotic. They warm her dreams, make her grateful for the experience. The phone stays off and under the bed, hidden away but not forgotten. She puts the shirt away and leaves it there. 

When she think about Will, she contents herself with trying to draw his future children, even his future wife. She wants him to be happy with his life in Chicago while she’s happy in New York, just in a different way. His paper wife has kind eyes, a round face. She draws him a dog, like he must have had as a child to account for the scratches at the door, a companion for his children. Same house, breathed back to life. A new color, maybe some rose bushes. Riley gives him happiness, and hopes it works like a real charm. 

“Who's that?” a young voice asks, over her shoulder. 

Riley looks up and sees Minerva, affectionately called Mini, one of their youngest, standing beside her. She smiles and turns the paper in her direction. “Just something I dreamed.” 

Mini blinks at it seriously. “They’re pretty.” 

“I think so too.” Riley trails her fingers along the edges. “Do you want to draw with me?” 

Mini hums and shuffles her feet. “Maybe.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

Mini stares over her shoulder for a few minutes, face pinched. “When the baby comes, are you still our teacher?” 

Riley smiles and urges her closer. “Technically, I not your teacher now, but yes. I’ll still help.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.”

“Why did you have to have a baby now?” Mini’s eyes dart around the room, a nervous habit. Riley soothes her with a hand over the back of her head, a gesture she had completed a thousand times before. She had been there when Mini was born. 

“It was time for me. Aren't you excited not to be the baby anymore?” 

Mini’s eyes light up. “I am! I want to be like you.” 

“You will be,” Riley says, keeping a straight face. “And you know what?” 

Mini shakes her head, wide eyed.

“I bet the baby will want to be just like you.” 

“Really?” Mini’s hand clenches tightly around the paper, crumpling it at the corner. Riley pays it no mind. 

“Really. Now, come on, I know you’re supposed to be at swim camp soon so you need to get ready.” 

Mini jumps up and runs out of the room, gloom completely forgotten. Smiling, Riley stares after her, her hand rising to rest against her stomach on instinct. They symmetry of it warms her. Riley had felt the same way when she was very young. She went to Angelica about it, thought that couldn’t exactly be considered part of the whole. More of a torn edge. 

She sighs and looks back down at the drawing, now damaged. For all that she loved her time with Will, it might as well have really been a dream, unreal at its edges and fundamentally temporary. 

As she stands to get ready for the evening lesson, she finds that it’s getting harder to imagine giving it all up. Run to Will? For what, really? 

Of course, she can see it. When she lets her mind wander she can see Will wrapped around her, picking their little girl up to toss in the air, but she can’t imagine actually setting the events in motion. There’s no future there, only dreams. 

“Riley?” a voice calls out to her, much older than Mini’s. 

She turns to see Yrsa standing in the doorway, a fond but stern look on her face. As always. 

“Yes, Elder?” Riley turns and crosses her hands in front of her, a lifetime of lessons coming to the front of her mind. Yrsa’s specialization, magic that impacts and heals the mind, had never been to Riley’s strengths, but she had been patient with her, and always appreciated the effort. 

Yrsa smiles. “How are you? Feeling strong?”

Riley smiles back. “Yes, better than in a long time.” 

“That is to be expected. We are powerful when connected to each other, and there is no greater connection than the one you currently hold,” Yrsa says, stepping closer. 

“I think two months might be too soon for that,” Riley says, pleased. “You can barely tell anything.” 

“Maybe, but the energy is strong,” Yrsa responds, holding out her hand. “May I?” 

Riley nods, privately excited to be the focus of this new, almost referential attention. Her magic had never been the strongest, her skills never the best. But she feels right, more correct than she had ever felt, in the role of a mother. 

Yrsa touches her stomach lightly, a smile on her face. “Yes. I don’t think we have to worry about you at all do we?” 

Riley puts her hand on top of Yrsa’s, feeling the power, layered up and top top of each other. “I’ve been making my own remedies from the garden, based on my personal-” 

“Really?” Yrsa tilts her head. “Perhaps we should look into that when you get back.” 

Riley blinks. “Back?” 

“Yes, assuming you’re willing I’d like to send you on a minor errand.” 

“Oh.” Riley straightens her shoulders. It had been years since they had asked her to do something. Yrsa, Sahana, any of the council. They go to Kala, if they go to a younger witch at all. “What needs to be done?” 

“Oh nothing risky.” She pats Riley’s cheek. “You remember Sun? You might be too young.” 

“The vampire?” Riley asks, a little breathlessly. 

“Yes, she was here about ten years ago. She’s very old, and possesses an unparalleled control, you needn't worry about anything on that front. She has been a friend to this coven for generations, and more than capable of keeping others of her kind in line.” 

“I remember,” Riley responds, thinking back to being twelve and hiding behind the door, Kala a few feet behind her, whispering that they should go, they weren’t invited. Sun opening the door, Riley tumbling back as Kala stood with her arms at her sides, lip quivering. Sun had seemed huge and imposing. Ancient. 

“Yes, well, she has a new creation. Some man she met down in South America or some such nonsense.” 

Riley nods. “They’re here for the blessing.” 

Yrsa waves her hand. “To be blessed by a coven is an old ritual, mostly for show, but you know how these old vampires are.” 

“Of course,” she answers, even though she doesn’t. “I’d be happy to take care of it.” 

“Wonderful, thank you dear. Please let Kala know we understand, when you see her.” 

Riley frowns. “Kala? What do you mean?”

Yrsa blinks. “Well it is something she has done before, you see.” 

“No, I understand, of course,” Riley says, which is true. Kala excels at blessings of all sorts. “It’s just, she wouldn’t go?” 

“No, she said she was too busy working on that special project of hers, and Chicago is rather far.” 

Riley blinks. “Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play genres. What usually happens in supernatural fiction when werewolves and vampires are in the same place? hmmm
> 
> Also, in case anyone is curious, this is what everyone is in this universe:  
> Riley: Witch  
> Kala: Witch  
> Will: Werewolf  
> Wolfgang: Werewolf  
> Sun: Vampire (old)  
> Lito: Vampire (new, made by Sun)  
> Nomi: Changeling  
> Capheus: Fey (King)  
> Not all of them will show up in this first part but that’s where they all are! I’m planning to write a bunch of stories in this universe, with part 2 being Kala/Wolfgang, but we’ll see. 
> 
> paradiamond.tumblr.com :) I'm trash


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley goes back to Chicago for her meeting with Sun. Instead, Will finds her, and certain secrets come to light.

Riley flips through her phone, trying not to feel nervous that she’s early for her meeting with Sun and her new creation, Lito. Not from South America, like Yrsa had guessed, but Mexico, and a bit of an odd circumstance. Why would Sun, hundreds of years old and long known for her caution, even for a vampire, change a movie star? 

The door opens and Riley looks up, but of course it isn’t them. Or him. A little embarrassed, she turns her attention back to her phone. Any imagined, dramatic chance meeting with Will had not come to pass. It’s for the best, but it doesn’t stop her from looking for him in crowds, and feeling disappointed that she doesn’t find him. It’s also a relief. He will have long moved on and it will be fine, but maybe it might even be nice to see him again, but very casually, she tries to tell herself. It’s better this way. 

She take a sip of her coffee, remembering, and feels a chill run up her spine from the wind coming through the door. She glances over her shoulder, and he’s standing there, wide-eyed and still holding the door open with an irritated line of people forming behind him. She blinks, her heart picking up at the sight of him. Of all of Riley’s weaknesses, sentimentality had always been the most benign. Until today, when she decided to wait in the same coffee shop where they first met. Despite the initial panic that grips her, Riley tries to smile, but the look on his face is too much. He clearly hasn’t forgotten about her. 

“Will,” Riley darts out of her seat and pulls him away from the door, a little too delayed. Her heart jumps to her throat. Who knows what had shown on her face? There’s no one else with him, not his friends, not the girlfriend she had imagined. Will lets himself be moved, still staring at her, his hand curling around her wrist like a cuff. The barista glances over at them, and several people start muttering at the same time. They’re making a scene and they’re not even doing anything. She tightens her grip on his hand and tugs, abandoning her drink. “Come on.” 

She all but drags him out of the shop and onto a bench, crossing her leg and curling in on herself in her oversized sweater. It’s lucky that she’s only two months along, not showing too much. Her pulse pounds. She really doesn’t want to have that conversation on top of everything else, not with the way he’s looking at her. 

“Will,” Riley smiles, falling back on all her training. Normal people will do almost anything, anything to act normal. “How are you?” 

Will frowns at her, his face still oddly devoid of any kind of expression. He’s still holding onto her hand. “What?” 

Riley blinks. “I- how are you?” 

“How- me?” A line appears between his eyebrows. “Riley, what happened?” 

She looks away, out towards the street, nervous energy making her shake, just a bit. It had been a terrible idea to come back, to put herself back in this situation. What had she been thinking? Will’s other hand lands on hers, and she jumps, turning back to face him. Normal. “I’m sorry, something came up. A family thing.” 

As excuses go, it’s pretty bad, and it’s immediately clear that he won’t take her vague responses for the non-answers they are. He shakes his head. “You disappeared. I called you.” 

“It- I’ve been very busy.” 

Will blinks, then he cocks his head to the side, clearly thinking. His face is the same, still unbearably sweet. Riley never should have gone with him, never should have come back. She knew better. Will is smart. She needs to be more convincing. Or run. 

Riley jumps to her feet. “I have a meeting, so I have to go.” 

Will stares up at her, her hand still held in his, but not tightly. She takes it back. As if startled into action, Will stands too, reaching for her hand again. “Wait-” 

But Riley is already moving, heading down the street, making a random turn into what seems to be an alley. Of course Will follows, but at least they’re out of the street. 

“Riley.” Will catches her again, physically turning her around by the shoulders to face him. “You don’t live in California, do you?”

“What?” She can’t look at him in the face, so she fixes her gaze on a point over his shoulder. “Of course-”

“I’ve been looking for you.” He sounds pained, and it draws her back to his face, his eyes. They’re startlingly clear, and open, and honest. Her throat constricts. “You stopped answering your phone.”

Riley shifts on her feet, trying not to let anything show on her face. That phone is off and under her bed at home. It was a fake, just like the rest of it. 

“I-” Riley pauses, her mind racing, and realizes what she has to do. Will has made her into this thing, this unreal girl. Rip the band aid off. It’s for the best. If she needs to hurt him before he can get over her, get better, that’s what she’ll do. She straightens up, squaring her shoulders under his hands. “You’re right. I lied. I only wanted some fun and I, I never meant for it to get complicated.” 

“But it did,” Will insists, his thumbs rubbing circles into her shoulders, still holding on. “It did for me, and I think it did for you too.”

“No,” she insists, feeling her face get hot. 

“Riley, are you lying to me again?”

“No, I-” She looks down. 

He’s suddenly right there, kneeling on the ground in front of her, outside and in public. She jolts back, startled, but he catches her hand. “If there’s something going on, you can tell me. I can fix it.”

That startles a laugh from her, and she shakes her head, the heat spreading, making her sick. “No, you can’t. You can’t just fix everything, Will.” 

His eyes sharpen. “So there is something.”

She looks away again. “Well, no but-”

“Riley look, me and my friends, we’re...we can take care of things. Tell me what’s going on. It- I know I can be pushy, but doesn’t have to be like it was before. We can just be friends, I don’t want to force you into anything. But I want to help you.” 

Riley frowns down at him, trying to pull through the strands and figure out what he means. There’s too much, far too many secrets between them for anything to happen, but does he deserve a measure of the truth? 

She sighs, and then glances up, her gaze drawn over his shoulder as two people step into the mouth of the alley. Sun, and a much larger man who must be her new creation, Lito. A new vampire. Riley freezes, her mind racing with the fear that Will is going to find out if she doesn’t do something, find some way to stop Sun, or more likely her younger creation, from mentioning any of it. Then what? Then she has to go home and tell them all that she failed, that she exposed them. Sun stares at her curiously. But then the wind blows softly in her face, messing up her hair, and suddenly Will is standing up, making some kind of strange sound and pushing her behind him. 

At the same time, Sun smoothly steps in front of Lito, eyebrows raised. “A werewolf? How interesting. This wasn’t werewolf territory the last time I checked.” 

“What?” Riley asks, and they ignore her. What? 

From behind her, Lito laughs, though he keeps his eyes fixed on Will, who seems stuck, his hand still holding Riley’s behind his back and one of his legs canted forward, like he might lunge at them. “And how long ago was that? A thousand years?” 

Riley drags her eyes away from Sun to stare at the back of Will’s head, shocked into silence. 

“Quiet, Lito,” Sun says, and then purses her lips. “More like a few hundred.” 

A strange noise, similarly to ones she had heard before in bed but much, much darker, rumbles from Will’s chest. Growling. A werewolf. Riley fights to keep her breathing under control. “Will?” 

His head jerks to the left, as though trying to look at her but unwilling to turn away from Sun. Riley steps forward as much as she can with Will holding her tight, and sees Sun watching, eyebrows raised. Riley gets most of the way around him and rolls up her her toes, putting them close together, trying to distract him. They can’t fight. They can’t. “Will, maybe we should just-”

“Go?” Sun asks, amusement lacing her voice. “An excellent idea.” 

Will does not react well to that, leaning forward against Riley’s now tightest possible grip. He’s so strong, he must barely be feeling her. But she can’t have them do this, not here, not now. Whatever else Will is, whatever they had done, Sun could kill him. “Will!” 

He looks down at her and frowns, like he’d forgotten she’d been there, and turns, catching her waist with his other hand. But he looks right back up to Sun and fixes her with a glare. 

Sun watches the whole display with a detached sort of interest while her creation bounces up and down on the balls of his feet behind her, eyes wide and fascinated. Lito leans forward, but Sun holds up a hand, freezing him in place. “Let’s go. We can conduct our business another day.” 

With that, they leave, continuing on to the other side of the gap with such grace it was like they’d never even paused. Will glares in their direction, but doesn’t move, clearly torn between two instincts. 

Riley stares after them. It’s easier to do that then it is to think about Will, suddenly ushering her out of the other side of the alley, back down the street. He has one hand wrapped around hers and the other on his phone, frantically texting. Riley feels numb, a sort of blankness taking over, and lets herself be pulled, the entire world shifting on its axis with every step they take. 

“That was uh-” Will casts a glance in her direction as they get into a cab, panic obvious in his eyes. He shoves his phone back in his pocket. “What was that? Weird, right?”

Riley turns in her seat to stare at him, confused. Will glances away and then looks back, and it occurs to her that he’s trying to cover for it, trying to pretend like it’s all so ridiculous, instead of asking her who those people thought they were. It’s what they do too, the witches, only they’re trained to be good at it. Pretend. Be normal. Werewolves? Vampires? His response gives it away, and he clearly knows it, because he stops talking altogether when she looks at him, trying to make sense of it, putting the pieces together in her head. But he never lets go of her, even as they get out of the cab and walk up his driveway. He even opens his door with his non-dominant hand. 

Riley just follows in silence, her mind full of white noise. Werewolf? There were stories, surely. But old stories, from the time of war. Here? Now? She stops in his living room, not noticing that he goes away until he comes back, with mismatched mugs full of tea they won’t drink, that she knows he didn’t heat up properly, probably nervous that she would run, expose them. She takes a steadying breath that comes out worse, and he urges her down to the couch by her shoulders. 

“Hey,” He kneels down in front of her, his hands still gripping at her arms. His face is pinched, stressed. Riley wants to wipe it away, but she can’t. She’s done something terrible, again, by exposing him to an outsider. Will doesn’t seem to realize this, much in the same way that he hasn’t seemed to understand that she’s a secret too, because he stays low, trying and failing to project calm and comfort. He doesn’t know, doesn’t realize that Sun was looking for her. “Are you alright?” 

Riley frowns at him, trying to come up with a response, but he lowers his head before she does. “God- no of course you’re not. Riley-” 

“I’m fine,” she offers, and his head snaps back up. His eyes are wide and kind, and she needs to put a stop to it. She can’t undo it. She can’t go back and not have sex with him, not lie, but she can help this. “That was funny, it just startled me. It’s a joke, yes?” 

Will stares up at her, obviously surprised by the out. Wondering if he should take it. He must be under orders not to let his secret out, just like her. They must have a group, that’s how they were made, to run in packs, back when Vampires were the enemies of Witches and they needed a enemy to match. Riley had been taught, as they’d all assumed, that the last of them died out centuries ago. Apparently not. 

“No.” 

Riley blinks. “What?” 

Will lets out a shuddering breath and hauls himself up to sit next to her on the couch, leaving a polite amount of distance between them. They’ve never sat this far apart before except in public, and she itches to close the distance, out of habit if anything else, and never mind that it would be wildly inappropriate. “It’s not a joke. It’s- I am a werewolf.” 

The silence between them feels charged, and Will watches her like a bomb that might go off at any moment. She shakes her head. “You-” There should be no reason for him to confirm it. Surely they don’t let breaches like this happen every day? Will should be laughing, and kicking her out. Riley leans back against the arm of the couch, and watches him lean forward, matching her. A sinking feeling builds in her chest. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“Because,” Will says, his eyes shining with a familiar intensity. A sincerity she’s not allowed to touch. “You’re a part of it. I- you’re important to me. Very important.” 

“What do you mean?” Riley breathes carefully, old stories unfurling in the back of her mind, shadows on the wall of her childhood bedroom with Kala. Werewolves. Pack life. Mate for life. 

It doesn’t take long for Will to reach his limit under her gaze. He’s a straightforward man, in life, in love, in sex. Riley _knew_ this. Duplicity doesn’t suit him. He takes a breath, and everything comes out. 

He tells her about his people, some things she already knew, and others she didn’t. Not just mates for life, but perfect mates. How he followed her into the coffee shop. How he loved her as soon as he met her. How he searched for her when she left, driven by his blood, by his drive to protect and keep and complete her. Everything slots into place. 

Bizarrely, as if through a haze, she’s offended that he didn’t tell her, though she realizes that it’s ridiculous. She’d done the same thing. Worse, even. Will just keeps talking, apparently unaware of how she’s falling apart, the magnitude of what she’d done starting to creep into the back of her mind. Could she have prevented this for him? Did she make it worse by going with him? He wants her to stay, that much is clear from his face even as he’s telling her she doesn't have to do anything. He wants her. He asked her about California. _I looked for you,_ he said. 

Riley listens, and breathes, and can’t believe what she’s done. When Will reaches for her hand, clearly concerned by her increasingly obvious panic, she jumps up and away like she’d been burned, and the devastated look on his face hits her like a blow to the chest. She closes her eyes. “Will I-”

“It’s ok.” He puts his hands back on his knees, which are shaking somewhat. It’s awful. She looks away. Kitchen. Door. Scratches. The clothes behind the chair make sense now. Stairs. Her mind is blank. “Riley?” 

“I need to lie down,” she says, and all but runs up the stairs, all the way until she reaches his room, and closes the door behind her. 

She doesn’t get very far, putting her back to the wood and sliding down, onto the floor. Dizzy. Sick. It’s hard to seperate the pregnancy from the panic of the situation. A wave of guilt and fear washes over her, and she presses her hand to her slight swell of her stomach, taking what strength she can from her own self. It works, until she hears him coming up the stairs, lightly, like he doesn’t want to scare her. It makes her chest hurt, that he thinks this terrible thing. It’s not fair to him, when she’s the real monster. 

“Will?” 

The sound stops. “Yeah?” 

“I’m- I’m sorry I just need a minute,” she says, and then shakes her head, feeling like an idiot. 

“It’s ok,” he says, very quickly. “I know it’s a lot. You’re not...used to it.” 

Riley puts her face in her hands. She should have pretended not to believe him more, should have insisted. What kind of normal person just accept that someone could be a werewolf because a random woman on the street calls him one and he confirms it? Normal people don’t think like that. Will is smart, a cop, he’ll figure that out. He’ll notice the things that make her strange. She lifts her head again, letting it hit the door behind her. “I’m just- afraid.” 

It’s low, but it works. Wil comes the rest of the way up the stairs, nearly tripping on his way, and then stops dead outside the door. “You don’t have to be. I won’t hurt you. No one will, ok? We’re not dangerous. Or, well, we’re like normal people, I mean. Some of us are dangerous, but it’s not like a movie. I’ll never hurt you.” 

Riley listens, some of the darkness fading out of her bones, leaving her tired instead. In another world, it could have meant something. She should tell him that. Tell him it’s not his fault, that he was wonderful and this doesn’t change anything, which is true. She owes him honesty. 

But she owes her coven more. 

Riley takes a breath, holds it, then lets it out. “Can you go back downstairs?” 

“Yeah, it’s- whatever you need.” He scrambles up. She hadn’t noticed him sit down on the floor. He must have been right behind her, back to back, separated only by the wood of the door. Her heart aches, and only gets worse as she hears him pad back down the stairs. 

The minutes roll by, and Riley feels lost in the wind. It’s hot, getting hotter by the minute, and she rips her sweater off in a fit of frustration, throwing it away from her, wanting to scream, to cry, but she can’t. Will stays close, pacing by the front door, moving thing around in the kitchen, keeping his hands busy. After a while, Riley gets up and sits on is bed, the one they had rolled around in, like foolish children. Anxiety pervades the space, choking her, made worse by the fact that she knows Will could ease it. 

Riley curls into a tighter ball, wanting to just stop, to just go to sleep. Her hands go back to her belly, feeling to soft swell there under the take top, clear and comfortable. She wants Will to feel it too. She wants him to get into the bed with her, and stay, but she can’t do it. If he comes in the room, and loves her, and holds her, and smiles, if she stays with him another night, she might never leave again. Especially not if he knows, if he finds out what they made together. He’s not normal man. Most of them, most of the time, they don’t want this kind of life, this kind of responsibility. They throw life away, in wars, in stupid trifles, in sterile clinics they abandon their lovers to. Will isn’t that, she feels it. They’re different. She stares at the wall, haunted. It’s too much, too easy to stay. She needs to get up. 

Her eyes go to the door. But there’s no way he’ll let her leave without having his say, and her excuses aren’t going to be good enough. She might have been a good witch when she was at home and things were easy, but here, with Will, she’s weak. He’ll catch her, and hold her, and promise things to her, beautiful, seductive things that this time she’ll know he can actually provide, and she’ll cave. 

Then her family will come looking. It will be like with Angelica. The Hex. It sends a shiver down her spine and she pushes herself up, away from the bed that smells like him. The door is not an option, clearly. He’ll stop her, ask for the answers he deserves, and she might give them to him, expose her sisters. The window is the only clear exit, but even if she could do it normally, she won’t risk the baby. Slowly, Riley calms her heart and makes herself look around the room. It’s the same as last time. Uniform. Books. The pile of ripped clothes. She understands that now too. Her sweater, in the corner. She leaves it, thinking of the ripped shoulder in a flannel shirt under her bed at home. Magic is all about balance, exchange. Riley keeps looking. Then she sees it. The mirror. 

Riley drifts over, letting the work carry her, slipping into magic. It’s a simple thing to pull the clothes off of it, and clean it with a shirt dampened in the sink, and shine it with her hands. It’s a harder thing to make it magic, to pull leaves from the tree outside his window and take blood from her own palm, saturating it with the life of the world. Riley murmurs the words, the spell forming under her hands, and works the magic into the world, bringing it forward, out of the dark and into reality. 

The hardest thing is to climb through the glass, bending away from her and then folding into her like water and coming through into the one in her room, leaving Will behind. 

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is late! I know this and I'm sorry. Hope you enjoyed anyway, and I have all of the next chapter written, and the entirety of the rest of the fic blocked out and outlined, so hopefully no more big gaps! I also have most of an AU of this AU written, so that's fun too. Thanks <3 
> 
> next time: Riley back at home, even more conflicted than before, and things get more complicated as Sun gets involved.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley tries to figure out where to go from here.

The longer she looks the more she can see that he’s not getting over it. 

Through the mirror, Will lies flat on his back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Recently it had become his preferred spot. Before, it was the floor by the door, where she had been. It’s awful, watching him like this. 

With some effort, Riley tears her eyes away and refocuses on the book in her lap. She had been trying to research werewolves, but the literature is sparse. Werewolves are a magical creation dating back to the fifteenth century, that much is clear, but contemporary information is few and far between in the books she has access to. It makes sense, since they don’t need them anymore to fight a war with the vampires. That conflict had been resolved three centuries ago, and their compact with the werewolves dissolved. 

Riley drops the book on her bed, frustrated. There might be more, but she can’t bring herself to ask. That would lead to far too many follow up questions. If she were Kala, who had always followed whatever thread of curiosity she pulled, even when she was a little girl, that would be one thing. But Riley had never been a student of history, and she can’t afford to draw attention to herself by suddenly asking questions, especially these kinds. 

Recently, her project had become the rules, the limits. To fix what she’s done, she first needs to find out if and how she can un-do it. In magic there are central principles. That doesn’t change, no matter what form the magic takes. Will calls it perfect mates, what he feels for her, but those are just words. 

“A curse?” she muses to herself, fingers playing over the growing bump of her stomach, her anchor to reality. Without her daughter, she doesn’t know where she would draw her strength to handle this. Not a true curse, not like they usually mean, but something that can perhaps be altered, redirected to a more appropriate choice. Not that he had a choice. But what if she can give him one? It’s all she can give him, so she has to try. She lets out a harsh breath and closes her eyes, waving her hand in a tight, counterclockwise circle to shut the connection between the mirrors down. 

Once it’s closed, everything seems too small. Her room is oppressive, too familiar and too alien at once, like she doesn’t quite fit into it anymore. She gets up and goes to the window, then carefully climbs out and onto the roof, careful of her belly. The roof here is completely flat, forming the ceiling of the porch a floor below. It’s one of Riley’s favorite places, though sooner rather than later, she won’t be able to do it anymore for a while, since she’ll be too big to really bend over and crawl the few inches. The thought makes her nervous now, even more than before. Motherhood is challenging enough without mixing magics. 

She settles right at the edge, holding her legs close to her body. As the breeze shifts around her, it becomes clear that she’ll be doing more wondering than planning. She badly needs to talk to Kala. Any other time, about any other concern, she could. But this is something she has to figure out on her own. Kala will insist that she bring it to the council, and she’d probably be right. But Riley needs to think through on her own before Yrsa and the others get their hands on it. A half werewolf will be a fascination, a great boon to the Coven, and Riley wants to keep her for herself for a little while longer. 

The wind moves through the trees, strong and sure. Riley listens to it, and tries to be the same. Tries not to think about Will so much. What if they could make it work? Find some kind of balance. The rules for her people are written with human men in mind. Will is not like other men because he is literally unlike them. He’s a werewolf, not a human. Maybe as a magical being himself, he could be an exception to the rule. 

Even as she thinks it, Riley knows it won’t be true. Exceptions invite danger. Think of Angelica. Will can’t come to New York. 

She tries a different track, the fantasy quickly spinning out of control. Could she keep meeting him in Chicago? Explain as much as she can and have him in their city? What would he believe? She could tell him the truth, she realizes. He’s not a normal man. But that itself is part of the issue. It’s not something he would probably go for, he’d want more, and they’d be found out. 

The last thought is the most dangerous. Could she leave? Stay with him? Should she? It’s a line of questioning she doesn’t follow far, leaving it coiled at the back of her mind like a snake as she stares out at the trees. There’s just no way. If it was just her, maybe. But not now. 

“Riley?” 

The voice startles her so badly that she nearly falls, which would have been embarrassing. She can see it now, caught in the suspension spell around the house, hanging in the air outside the windows until someone stops laughing long enough to get her down. 

“Yes?” She leans over sticks her head through the window, and spots Kala leaning in from the hallway. 

“Phone.” 

“Oh, thanks.” She crawls back through, careful with herself as Kala watches. Her own baby had been growing too, and now they both look a little ridiculous. They go down the stairs together, in silence. Kala’s pregnancy had led her to contemplation where Riley’s had bred nervous energy, and they don’t talk as much as they did before. It’s a change. Riley casts her a glance as she disappears back out the door to the gardens. To be expected. 

The phone is sitting for her in the foyer, with Yrsa hovering close by, a shape in the doorway. Riley tries not to look nervous as she picks it up. “Hello?” 

“Riley.” The voice is smooth, but cold. Riley straightens her spine. She had only heard it once, but it stayed with her, clear and calm as a quarry lake, untouched by time. 

“Sun.” Riley feels a drop of sweat roll down her back. She had been chewing herself up with anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “I- I’m so sorry about-” 

“Think nothing of it.” 

“Oh.” Riley blinks. “Thank you.” 

“You are welcome. Allow me to speak with Yrsa.” 

“Of course,” Riley manages, her heart in her throat. Surely she’ll tell her that she saw Riley with a werewolf, and even worse, a man. 

For the others, Riley had made up a pregnancy related excuse, a twinge, nothing serious when they checked it out. Sun is the only one who knows the truth. Riley turns, and Yrsa is already there, her hand extended. There’s nothing to do except give her the phone, and excuse herself, her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest as she goes to the porch, a last bid for freedom, for saving face. The garden is probably too far, and besides, she doesn’t want Kala to see when Yrsa rounds on her. 

The porch swing. Wind on her face. “I did this,” she says, very quietly. 

“Did what?” 

Riley jumps, her hand flying to her throat. But it’s only her second mother. Kala’s first mother. Priya. “Auntie. You scared me.” 

Priya smiles, all kindness and familiar comfort. “Clearly.” Riley smiles back, and rests her hand on her belly, an excuse which has the benefit of being at least partly true. 

Priya nods and sits beside her, making the swing move with her feet. “Ah. You as well?”

“What?”

“Kala.” Priya keeps her face turned towards the sky. “She’s going to India.” 

Riley’s eyebrows fly up. “Really? Now?” 

Priya hums. “Soul searching. Happens a lot in the first pregnancy.”

Riley smiles. “I know.”

“I think you do.” She turns to look Riley in the eye. “Did something happen in Chicago?”

Her heart might as well have fallen out onto the floor. “What?” 

“Kala seems lost. It’s not like her to be this way. I think perhaps she is looking for her father, even if she doesn’t realize it.”

“Oh.” Riley turns away, hoping for contemplation, rather than guilt to show on her face. “Yes, it was an odd experience. I think Kala finds deceit difficult.” Unlike Riley, who has become a prolific liar, even now. She can’t remember much about Kala’s behavior when all she can think about is Will. Was she acting strangely? Did she think about her man as much as Riley devotes herself to Will? Do they all do it? Riley doesn’t know. She shifts in her seat, discomforted all the way to her bones. “What was he like?” 

Priya frowns at her. “Who?” 

Riley blinks. “Nothing, Auntie. I’ll let you know if I think of anything?” 

“Thank you,” Priya says, her attention on a far away point in the sky. A star, most likely. Priya’s magic is linked to the sky, the moon, the outside world. The gift for astronomy. She never seems to have much time for the one they live on. 

Yrsa is still on the phone when Riley goes back inside, bypassing the foyer. She feels sick as she all but sneaks up the stairs. But maybe it’s better, she reasons, easing the door closed, the truth can come out. She should place her trust in them, as they trust her. To do otherwise would be ridiculous. They’re her Coven, they can help, maybe even fix Will so that he doesn’t love her like this any more, break the magic. 

The thought is hard, harder than she would have thought to bear, especially since she had been trying to find that very answer herself not an hour ago. But it tears at her heart, pulls at her hand like a child. He deserves to be free, and she deserves to be punished. 

On a whim, she fishes the phone she’d used in Chicago out from the bag under her bed and turns it back on. A barrage of messages all download at once, some of which are too hard to look at for long. The pain there is clear, and it’s real. She never should have doubted it, not when she saw it in his face. But all she could see was what she expected. 

What kind of magic would do this? Magic shouldn't be able to create this depth of feeling. It can’t make real love. It doesn’t make sense. She scrolls through the phone, seeking out only the newest ones, looking for answers that aren’t there. They’re just a mess of feeling, a roiling frustration. **Riley please answer me** , **Riley where did you go?** , **I’m sorry, you don’t have to come back, just please tell me-** She turns it off before he can figure out she’d opened it again, and before it can burn her even more. 

“Riley?” 

Yrsa walks in just as Riley has the phone under her leg. She never knocks, and today Riley hates her for it, even as she fears what she’ll say. But she doesn’t look angry. “Yes?” 

“That was Sun. She holds no ill will against the Coven.” 

Riley nods. “That’s good news.” 

“You are to return to Chicago in a month for the blessing.” 

It would have been less shocking if she had come right out and slapped her. “What?” 

Yrsa frowns, clearly taken aback by Riley’s impertinence. “Riley. Sun is very important to us. She has requested you and you will complete the ritual. We can send -” 

“No,” Riley says, too quickly. No one can come with her, not there. “I can do it. I want to do it. Please.” 

If she’s suspicious, Yrsa doesn’t show it. But she does stare at Riley for a long moment before nodding. “Very well.” Then she’s gone again, leaving Riley shocked, curled up on the bed with the burner phone under her leg and her heart in her throat. Back to Chicago. 

She supposes she should be grateful. Something like this, it isn’t just a coincidence. It’s fate, an opportunity, and Riley knows better, she was raised better, than to turn her nose up at it. 

It leaves her with options, but not many. She gets up to put the phone away, this time for good, and closes the curtains. Carelessness had gotten her into this in the first place. In a haze, she straightens up her room, thinking. Trying to think. She didn’t pay attention last time, didn’t notice what she was doing in the bright distraction that was love. A love reflected back, made brighter and bigger. Worse. 

She sighs and rests her forehead against the coolness of the mirror. Looking is bad. Watching him, after everything she has already done, is wrong. What can she learn from it really? What does she expect? 

Riley raises her hand and unshields it again, leaning close. Will is still on top of his bed covers, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It’s not how he slept with her. Now, it doesn’t seem like he sleeps at all. Riley watches him, trying to come up with an answer. She loves him. That’s what this is. It’s always been that. 

He doesn’t look over at the mirror a lot, and there’s never any sound. It’s a horrible thing, what she’s doing to herself. She sets her fingers against the mirror, pained, noticing everything. He’s not wearing his jacket, so she’s not even protecting him at all. Nothing good is leftover, only this dull pain. 

Riley sighs, resting her forehead against the glass, and Will sighs and rolls over, happening to glance in her direction. Then he sits stock straight up, eyes wide and fixed on her. Riley recoils in shock, jerking herself out of the line of sight as soon as she physically can, frantically raising her arms to cut the connection, to separate them again. 

Will shouldn’t have been able to see her, but she shouldn’t have touched it either, shouldn’t have even left it active it in the first place. 

Magic, he’s magic, she remembers, still kneeling on the floor of her bedroom with her hand pressed to her throat, trying to calm her galloping heart. Not the same as the others. She drops her hand goes to her belly on instinct, checking to see that everything is ok, even though it isn’t. 

Perhaps this is why Coven mothers never talk about fathers. They’ve all got terrible stories about what they’ve done and who they’ve left behind. Maybe Kala really is going to find her father. Maybe Riley’s daughter will want to do the same, and will have to learn what a terrible disappointment she’s been. 

Riley will let her. She’ll tell her everything when she’s older. And when Will finds out, all his love for Riley will turn to hate, and she’ll deserve it, but he’ll love their daughter just the same. He will. The love Riley can’t give him now will flow into their daughter, and she’ll give it to him then. Late, but there. It’s the best she can do. It’s all she’s allowed to do. 

Still, Riley knows that she won’t destroy the mirror, and she has a month to figure out what to do with the rest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley returns to Chicago to conduct a ritual for Sun's new creation, Lito, who is completely incapable of minding his own business.

Chicago. Growing increasingly familiar to her, and the absolute last place she wants to be. 

Riley breathes carefully as she walks through the hotel lobby. It’s a nicer place than she’d stayed in last time, and that she would probably ever stay in her life again. Of course, Sun was old. The benefit of having unlimited time and no need to eat or sleep. Still, Riley walks slowly, a habit now that she’s farther along in her pregnancy, almost five months. Every day she changes, piece by piece. Sometimes it feels like soon, there will be nothing left of how she used to be. That girl is gone. 

The elevators, hallways, even the door somehow manages to look expensive. It also opens before she has the chance to knock, revealing Sun’s very large companion with a big smile on his face, Sun lingering behind him. They all speak at once. 

“Oh-” 

“Hello!”

“Lito.” Sun’s voice rings the clearest. Riley and Lito both look at her at once, as though pulled. Sun inclines her head. “Don’t scare the poor child.” 

Riley tries to smile. “It’s alright.” 

Lito, who had twisted over his own arm to look at Sun, untwists to beam at her. “Sorry, I could hear you coming and I thought I would save you the trouble.” 

“The living don’t like being reminded of how much we perceive.” 

An uncomfortable silence rises up between them, though Sun doesn’t seem to notice it. Lito, on the other hand, fidgets, still gripping the door so hard that it groans. Riley disparis for the no doubt outrageously expensive wood. 

“Lito.” 

He let go of the door. “Yes?”

“Invite her in.” 

“Ah! Yes, of course.” Lito steps back and sweeps his hand out. Riley darts inside as fast as she can, coming to a stop just inside the main space, which seems to be a sort of living room. There are two doors to either side, and a large balcony. Riley looks around as discreetly as possible, trying not to gape. 

“I know this must seem like a bit much,” Sun says, some life creeping into her voice. 

Riley faces her fully, putting the rest to the side. “Not at all.” 

Sun smiles. It’s a slight thing, but Riley can see right away that it’s her natural expression, not a mask. “Her people do not spend their time amassing material wealth. They believe that real treasures come from the earth, and from each other,” she says, still looking at Riley but clearly speaking to Lito, who hums and drops down onto the fanciest leather chair Riley had ever seen, bracing his elbows on his knees. Sun remains standing, so Riley does too, even though her ankles are starting to hurt. She pretty much aches all the time now, one of the more fun aspects of being pregnant. 

“They are right, of course,” Lito says, smiling. “But there’s nothing wrong with supplementing a little divine beauty with something superficial.” 

“Of course.” Riley shifts her weight, trying to get the baby to settle. Sun’s eyes drop to her stomach. 

“Please, sit.” 

Riley doesn’t argue, and the relief in her face must be obvious by the way Lito smiles. “This must be one of the beautiful things. The valued things.” 

“It is, yes,” Riley answers, careful. Vampires can’t have their own children, of course. 

Lito cocks his head to the side. “But not love.” 

Riley blinks. “I-” 

“Lito,” Sun cuts him off, raising her hand in an odd gesture, at more or less a forty five degree angle, her fingers pressed together. Riley startles, caught by the feeling on watching something unreal to her, of seeing something alien. Utterly unlike. Is that what it is, she wonders, what it would be between her and Will? Lito settles back against the couch again, still calm. 

“My apologies.” 

Riley says nothing, unsure if he’s speaking to her or Sun, who sits herself down with more grace than Riley could ever hope for, pregnant or not. 

“Now,” Sun settles back into perfect stillness. “Shall we begin? I hope this time we won’t be interrupted.” 

“Will isn’t here,” Riley answers, maybe a little too quickly. Lito smirks. Sun doesn’t move at all. 

“I see.” Her eyes move over Riley’s frame like a physical force, analytical rather than predatory. It still makes her uncomfortable, like she wants to curl her hands over her now visibly growing belly and shield her from the world, but she doesn’t. Sun shifts back against the couch, one leg crossed primly over the other. “You track him?” 

“Yes,” Riley responds promptly. “He’s out of the state.” 

“Convenient.” 

“I wouldn't want to put you in any danger.” 

Now Sun smiles. “Oh? How kind of you.”

Lito laughs. Riley blushes. “I am sorry for last time.”

Sun tilts her head, looking like a bird of prey. Beautiful, and fierce. “We were never in any danger from one...individual.” 

“I believe there are more.” 

“You believe?” Sun tilts her head to the side, just slightly, no doubt a holdover from a previous life. “You do not know?” 

“Well, I assume.” 

“There are many of them.” Sun nods. “It is their way. We avoid them, of course. No need for any excitement. Now, what of the blessing?” Lito jumps to his feet, all but vibrating with excitement. 

Riley pushes herself back up as well, relieved. “Of course.” 

The room is luxerious enough to have a decent amount of open space, which is good because Riley would prefer not to move the furniture. She asks Lito to roll the rug away, leaving only the gleaming wood floor. Sun hovers nearby. “We can go elsewhere if it’s more convenient.” 

“No, this is fine.” 

“I would hope for more than fine,” Sun says, a bit of stress leaking into her voice, and Riley is abruptly reminded that this is Sun’s first time bringing a new vampire for a blessing. The last time she had done this, she must have been the subject and buildings couldn’t even be built this high. 

Riley smiles at her, pulling the chalk from her pocket and trying to channel Kala. “For a more involved ritual, I would prefer to be outside, or at least on a low floor. It’s best for those to happen closer to the Earth. But for this, it’s not important. There’s no danger here, and in this rite the magical saturation will be the same no matter where we are, because the root is with us, in the connection between us.” 

Sun blinks. “I see.” 

“But chalk isn’t magic,” Lito whispers to Sun, openly watching Riley move in a slow circle, drawing the white line unbroken until it meets its own start. 

“It’s a tool,” Sun explains. “The circle is a focusing mechanism. The magic comes from the earth, and is channeled through her.” 

Lito doesn’t say anything else as Riley draws three lines from the center of the circle, coming out the the edge and then ending with another, smaller circle. In the remaining three sections of space, Riley marks off the positions for the candles and sketches the runes selected for this task. Loyalty. Pride. Assistance. Sun had selected them months ago, a mixture of her own house marks and ones she chose specifically for Lito, now hovering around the entrance to the kitchenette, as though trying to see everything happening while getting the candles out at the same time. When she finishes, a bit weak in the knees from crouching, Riley sits at the northernmost outer circle, pocketing the chalk. “Please.” 

Sun sits next, then Lito, still holding the delicate candles in his massive hands. Riley bites her lip to keep from smiling as he carefully sets the purple ones in their designated spots in the three spaces, just under the runes, and the taller black one in the very center, where all the lines connect. Everything feels right. 

“Thank you. Sun, Lito.” Riley lifts her hands, and all four of the candles light themselves, to Lito’s visible delight. Sun inclines her head. Lito seems frozen, watching Riley’s every move. From the circle, Riley can already feel the edges of his emotions, popping with life. She smiles back, sending her reassurance. “Lito, creation of Sun, friend to witches. Do you recognize and accept the ancestral link between our two peoples?” 

“I do.” 

“Will you honor this bond and hold us in the esteem that we hold you, as a brother to sisters?” 

“I will.” 

“Are you willing and ready to enter the magical society to which you have a sacred and unbreakable right, no matter what has come between and before?” 

“I- am?” 

Riley can’t help but smile. Apparently Sun hasn’t updated him completely on historical relations between their kinds. “You are?” 

Reeling under Sun’s icy stare, Lito lifts his chin. “I am.” 

Riley reaches forward to pick up the center candle and holds it there. “So it is, so it always shall be, and be again. Please, take my hand.” 

It’s a rehearsed cue. Both Sun and Lito reach into the circle and grasp the candle, one above and one below her hand. Touching with no touch. In her mind, in her heart, she can feel their hands over hers. 

Riley breathes deeply, and a hum settles in between them, the sparkling energy of a connection forged. It’s the echo of their shared genetic line, long sundered by circumstance and magic, now brought back together in life. As he feels it, Lito’s eyes go wide. “Oh.” 

“When I let go, you let go,” Riley says. Neither of them react, caught in the spell. Sun’s eyes shine in the light, reflecting the years, and likely remembering her own ritual. The well of feeling in her is immense, despite her cool exterior. 

To her left, the first candle goes out. Lito’s eyes flicker over to it, then back to the center. Good. The next one goes out, right in front of her. Then the third. Riley takes a breath, and they all let go, leaving the black candle hovering between them, the only light in the room. 

They’re all shaking, Riley most of all. “From this day, to all days, you are accepted among your people, Lito.” 

“Thank you,” he says, unscripted, his voice full of emotion. Sun reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder, her eyes still fixed on the point of light. 

“Yes.” 

“You’re very welcome,” Riley says, and carefully leans forward to blow the candle out. A force like a strong wind follows her, ruffling their hair and catching the candle before it clatters to the ground. Riley reaches out and takes it again, pulling it out if the circle. Then the wind is gone, and with it, the chalk of the circle. 

The three of them look at each other in silence, now just sitting on the floor, until Lito jumps up. “Here, let me help you.” 

Riley laughs and lets him help her up. It is a bit difficult, considering her unwieldy shape. “Thank you.” 

Lito grins at her, still holder her small hands in his. “Thank _you_.” 

“Yes,” Sun says, brushing imaginary dust off her skirt. “You did an excellent job.” 

Riley tries and fails not to blush. “Thank you.” 

“Thank everyone!” Lito cries, and starts picking up the remaining candles. Sun shakes her head at him, but the fondness is right at the surface now. 

They settle on the couch and chair again, loath to part from each other so soon. The mood has shifted under the new blessing. Any witch could feel it. Riley leans back against the softness of the chair, her hand going straight to her belly. Sun watches her, the same curiosity back in her face. 

“I hope you will not take this in the wrong way. Why did you not send someone else? I expect they would have let you.” The phone rings almost as soon as she speaks, which is good because it means Riley doesn’t have an answer. She watches Lito watch avidly as Sun pulls the sleek device out of the almost completely invisible pocket of her impeccably tailored dress. Sun checks the phone, rolls her eyes, and stands. “Excuse me.” 

“Is it him?” Lito asks, leaning forward so far he’s almost out of his chair. The look Sun gives him as she goes out onto the balcony would have made Riely shake, but it only makes Lito grin. She also does not make the gesture or use the tone, Riley notices, intrigued and rather relieved to be out of the spotlight. For a moment. 

“So.” 

Riley feels a chill run up her spine. She turns back to him with a smile. “Did you enjoy the blessing?” 

“Yes, it was fascinating. Your people are very impressive and I’m honored.” 

“Oh-” Riley flushes. “Well, thank you-” 

“But you are stressing me out.” 

Riley lifts her head, shocked. “What?” 

Lito smiles at her, not looking the least bit stressed. “I feel you. Or, I felt you. The love inside you. But you deny yourself.” 

“I love many people. I love my daughter, my sisters-” 

“This man.” 

Riley bites her lip. She wants to be annoyed, but she can’t, not after what they just went through. She’s seen Lito’s heart, and he’s a genuine, kind soul. “It’s a difficult situation. There are rules.” 

Lito throws his head back and laughs. “That’s what I hear about werewolves! But really, when it comes to the heart, isn’t it always? Besides, you did not say you do not love him.”

She hadn’t, had she? Riley sighs around the feeling bubbling up inside her. “That’s not-” 

“I love someone,” Lito says, and Riley can feel the weight of the words. “He is far away.” 

Riley tilts her head. “In Mexico?” 

“Human.” 

“Oh.” 

“Maybe it will always be like this for us.” Lito glances over to the balcony. “But it just seems…” 

Riley’s heart pounds in her chest. “What?” 

“It just seems like in a world full of magic, love should be possible.” 

***

She sees him from across the park near his house, just walking, out of uniform. He’d brought her here once, after dinner. It was pretty. They looked at the stars. Today, Will is looking at the ground. Unshaven, clothes maybe a little loose, still handsome. He’s supposed to be in California, but he’s here instead. Of course. 

Riley keeps very still. The magic sticks to her skin like a fine powder, light, but ever-present. Ignoring it is part of the trick. Sending everything to the very back of her mind, disregarding her own self so that others will do the same. The people that walk by don’t notice her. Their eyes slide away as long as she stays disengaged. Unimportant. Will does the same, looking right through her like she’s just another stranger on the street. 

It hurts. 

She closes her eyes, burying her emotions before they can expose her. They burn, stinging from the unfairness of it all, what she was doing to him, what Lito said, what her coven expects. It’s too much. It doesn’t matter what she wants. Shehad only wanted to see him, after Sun told her that she didn’t know anything about how to break the spell, if it even is a spell, she didn't know what to do. So she followed her instincts, and came here. 

The wind catches at her hair and brushes it up and into her face. Annoyed, she swipes at it, then presses her hand hard against her eyes to keep from unraveling. She needs to leave, go before the spell wears off. She needs to go home and remember why this is the right thing to do, no matter what romantic vampires say about her heart. 

She takes a deep breath and sets her hand down on the bench to push herself up. Her body is heavy now, it takes effort. 

“Riley?” 

Startled, she jolts back against the bench, eyes snapping open, her heart in her throat. “Will.” 

He’s looking down at her, shock written all over his face. He’s not moving. Riley stares up at him, heart pounding. “How-” 

The wind. Werewolf. She hadn’t covered for scent when she wove her spell. Panicked, she pushes herself up, following a flight instinct that won’t take her anywhere, not like this. Will watches as she turns, already knowing that it won’t be enough, but she has to try, she has to at least try to protect him. Quick as smoke, he catches her hand, pulling it away from her unmistakably pregnant body. 

“Wow I- I thought you smelled different the last time but I didn’t…” Will says, then he looks at her, all honesty and confusion and she realizes that she really thought that this time he would be mad. That he would hate her, she had feared it. But he doesn’t. She can see it in his face. 

Riley takes a breath, trying to prepare herself, to explain, and bursts into tears. 

“Oh-” Will’s arms come up around her, holding her close to his body. Riley presses into him, hard, trying to drive herself into nothing. It hurts. “Hey,” Will eases her back. “Here, it’s ok.” 

“No it’s not!” Riley manages, her face still jammed into his neck. “I-” Her voice breaks, and Will shushes her, his hands rubbing at her back. 

“It is.” Will surrounds her, familiar as if they just stood here yesterday. His arm slips from her back to take her hand. “Come on.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley and Will, back together.

When they get back to his house, Will manages to dig the keys out of his pocket, and shoulder the door open, all while holding her. Then he looks around like he’s never seen it before. “Oh, man. I have to move.” Riley shifts in his arms, trying see what’s wrong. He looks down at her, visibly horrified. “I can’t bring a baby in here.” 

Riley makes a noise in between a sob and a laugh. She feels hollowed out from crying, weak. It’s too much, too far. She can’t believe he still thinks they’re going to be together. Will seems to sense her impending meltdown because he sets her lightly on her feet and steers them over to the couch, still holding on. He hadn’t stopped touching her since she stood up from the bench in the park. 

“Ok, uh, it’s ok,” Will says, his expression ernest. “It’s fine, you don’t need to be scared, or anything. You don’t need to be with me ever again, it’s ok.” 

Riley blinks, now confused on top of everything else. “What?” 

“It’s- I know it’s a big deal, ok? The thing. The wolf...thing. I just, I just want to look out for you, help you. It's not that you need to be with me, or anything like that. We don't need to do that if you don’t want to.” 

“Why do you-” Riley looks away, trying to gather herself. The clothes under the furniture are still there. Werewolf stuff. He thinks she’s afraid. She shakes her head and looks back. “What?”

The look on his face is pained, and she wants to brush it away, take him in her arms. Will bobs his head, his hands folding together to rest on his knees, the same as ever. He looks tired. “When you left...it’s ok. I understand.” 

She could let him think that. 

“No,” Riley shakes her head. “You don’t.” 

“It’s-” 

“Don’t say it’s fine! It’s not fine. I’ve done a terrible thing.” 

Will reaches for her, then second guesses himself, his hand hanging in the air. Riley can’t stand it, not after everything else. She catches it out of the air, winding their fingers together. “Will, I’m sorry.” 

He shakes his head. “It’s a lot to take in, and you didn’t do it on purpose,” he says, casting a meaningful look to her belly. 

Riley can’t take it anymore. She can’t lie anymore. It’s too much, too against her nature. This had been tearing her apart since she met him, since the first lie. 

Everything comes pouring out. 

It takes a while, especially when she realizes that Will hadn’t known how she got out of his room, it hadn’t occurred to him that she could have a secret too. She tells him the rest, magic moon and all. Will seems to feel everything about that at once. He’s horrified and mad and confused and sad. Riley eases back, trying to give him space, but he keeps her hand even though his face is turned away. 

“So, you need me now, because you know the baby is going to be a werewolf too.” He’s clearly in pain. He rubs his hands over his face. “Ok. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”

It would be easy, relatively speaking, to let him think that too. Sow the seeds of hate and use this to escape, go back to her family, regroup. 

“No,” Riley says, feeling the truth of it, like Lito said. What she wants might not matter, but she knows what it is now. “I want you in her life and I want you in my life. I do love you. It’s- you were never wrong, about that. But we can’t.” Her voice breaks. 

Will picks his head back up, narrows his eyes. The cop, the wolf. He shifts back in her direction, and looks at her seriously. “Tell me.”

Riley breathes, and again when his hand come up to the back of her neck. “Ok.” 

***

Riley never thought that she would be in Will’s bedroom again, and now she’s not sure that she’ll ever leave. 

“I knew it,” Will says, curling even closer to her on the bed, his body perfectly molded to hers, knees slotted to knees, chest to back, his hand on her belly. “I knew there was something going on.” 

“I know,” Riley whispers, her hand finding his. “I could tell.” 

He won’t leave the room, not to make phone to the other wolves calls she probably shouldn’t hear, not to eat. They’ve been laying in the bed for hours. He doesn’t even want her to go to the bathroom by herself. When he finally had, she heard him outside the door, pacing, like a panicked, cornered thing. Then back in the bed, and all he does is hold onto her. 

“I’m afraid you’re going to disappear again,” he says, close to her ear. “You just vanished, Riley. Both times.” 

She turns her face, pressing into his skin. “I know.”

“One minute you were here, and then I noticed your scent was fainter and you were gone. I never heard you move and there was no trail-” His voice breaks. He clears his throat. “I couldn't figure it out. Diego said that I must have fallen asleep but I know I didn't-” 

“You didn’t. You couldn’t have known.” Riley reaches back and hooks him closer, as close as they can get. “I went through the mirror. I’ve- I watch you, sometimes.” 

Will makes a rumbling sort of sound, his chest humming against her back. When she cranes her neck to look at him, he’s staring at the mirror like it personally betrayed him. 

“Will?”

“You watched me?” he asks, still looking away. 

Riley blinks. “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it’s-” he clears his throat. “I don’t know if I’m jealous or flattered or what, but I like that. I want you to do that. Stuff like that. I want you so much.” 

Heat rises up in Riley’s throat, threatening to spill over again. She rolls over, hooking her arms around his neck. “I do. I want you so much, I always have.” 

Now that she can see his face properly, Will looks achingly vulnerable. His brown eyes are melted down, shimmering in the low light. Riley wants to reach out, take his face in her hands and and hold all his pieces together, so she does. 

There had been an undercurrent of electricity before, a path of aching pressure where they touched. When they made love, Riley felt like Will was carrying her to a point, that they were chasing each other in a circle until they fell off the edge of the world, always moving towards that jumping off point for pleasure. Now, it feel like the game has changed, or they have. 

They touch with no destination. Will runs the pads of his fingers along each of her ribs, as if counting them. She smoothes her palms along the planes of his face, down over his neck, back up through his hair. It’s a reaffirmation, she realizes, a reassurance. Not a revelation in skin and tongue. 

Pleasure spreads over her in a honeyed slide, not building towards a tipping point but settling comfortably into her bones. Will presses her back into the bed, covering her in a blanket of living heat. She arches against him, and he’s barely hard against her, preoccupied with running his hands along the length of her spine, pulling her close to settle his nose into the crook of her shoulder. 

With no goal, there’s no need to hold a rhythm. Riley drifts off, her arm dangling untl Will catches it and bring it back up to their cradle, rousing her again. They start and stop, hazy in their private space. She forgets to check the time; it doesn’t matter. The softness between them lures him into a deep place inside herself, the part that touches him back just the same, with sweetness and familiar care. 

Eventually, they’re sated, absolutely saturated with touch. Her skin feels raw, rubbed clean of being away from him. Will hums against her hair, slower and slower, but never stopping entirely. Everytime he starts to drift away, he wakes himself. 

Riley worries that he won’t sleep, and she doesn’t want to leave him behind while she does. She thinks about putting him to sleep again, like she did in the past, but she doesn’t want to do that kind of thing anymore. She looks up and Will is looking down at her, clear eyed. 

“You’re not sleeping.” They’re bound together like puzzle pieces, his arm slung over her belly, her legs bent at the knees and hooked up and over his, tucked up against her. His arm resting behind her neck. Her hair his in his face. 

Will makes an agreeable sort of sound. “Neither are you.”

“I could help you,” she says, and shifts under his arm, shifting it down just a bit to better cradle her stomach, and he molds around her easily, falling back into place. 

Will looks at her in silence. The fragility of the peace between them haunts her. She can’t help but fear that it will break at any moment, and then where will she be? She’ll have exposed her people for nothing, betrayed her sisters for something they warned her wouldn't last. 

Riley breathes, calming herself. “I put you to sleep before, when you didn’t know. But I won’t do it again, not unless you ask me.” 

He lets out a long breath. “I feel like- like I'm keeping a list in my head about all the ways we’ve hurt each other.”

Riley tightens her grip. “You haven’t hurt me.”

Will sighs. “Wronged you, then. I chased you. I was basically stalking you. I- Diego saw you and called me back from California.” 

She considers this. It’s only because she told him that she lived in California that he didn’t find her in New York. What would she have done if he had just shown up? He didn’t even know she was pregnant, he just wanted her. Would he have left if she asked? 

“Let’s not do it anymore.”

Will cracks a smile, the first real one she’d seen in awhile. “Just like that?”

She smiles back, or tries. Her whole face feels tired from the crying. She’s been wrung out like a wet rag. “Yes.” 

He leans down and kisses her forehead. “I guess if you say so.”

The smile comes easier. “Can you try to sleep? I won’t make you, but try?”

Will studies her. “You won’t go anywhere.”

She presses back against him. “No. I promise.”

His arms tightens around her. “You’ve never said that before.”

“I know.” She links their fingers together, an ancient sign. She’ll teach him them all. “It’s a serious thing for us. A vow made by a witch is a bond.” 

Will sighs, his breath warm against her cheek as he settles in. “Ok.”

She arches closer, letting her mind drift and her body relax in the circle of his arms. The air is cool and still. The city is a low rumble, far away. 

But Riley jerks awake when Will does, his eye wide and panicked, grabbing the air until he sees her. Then he folds himself over her, covering her, keeping her there. Shaking. Riley runs her fingers through his short hair and wonders when that will stop, it it ever. Maybe they’ve scored marks into each other too deep to fade. 

And she still doesn’t know what they’re going to do in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr for a mix bag of nonsense, paradiamond.tumblr.com


End file.
